PRIVATE BUSINESS

Nottingham City Council [Lords]

Read a Second time, and committed.

Transas Group Bill (By Order)

Order for Second Reading read.
	To be read a Second time on Wednesday 11 June.

Oral Answers to Questions

WALES

The Secretary of State was asked—

Unemployment

Jackie Lawrence: What recent discussions he has had with the First Secretary about the number of unemployed people in Wales in (a) May 1997 and (b) May 2003.

Peter Hain: Unemployment in Wales is down 45 per cent. since April 1997 and down at least 33 per cent. in every Welsh constituency. Youth unemployment in Wales is down 79 per cent. during the same period and long-term unemployment is down 84 per cent. The Welsh economy is on track for long-term sustainability and prosperity.

Jackie Lawrence: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. In Preseli Pembrokeshire, we exceed that figure, with a 46 per cent. fall in unemployment. Despite that, 75 jobs have recently been lost in Milford Haven in my constituency, primarily because of a lack of broadband facilities. Will he please hold discussions with BT and particularly the regulator, which seems to be the stumbling block in this instance, to see whether moves can be made to roll out broadband in Wales to avoid such unnecessary loss of jobs in future?

Peter Hain: I shall certainly do that. My hon. Friend makes a good point. Broadband is being rolled out extensively across Wales, but more needs to be done, particularly for rural areas, including Pembrokeshire, and she makes her case very well.

Elfyn Llwyd: Will the Secretary of State please tell the House what is being done in Wales to increase employment opportunities for those between the ages of 50 and 65? When he replies, will he also tell the House what is happening with regard to the under-employed in the Wales Office?

Peter Hain: I shall answer the serious part of the hon. Gentleman's question first. He asked what is being done for older workers. The Government have a strategy in place to assist older workers, including, in particular, those in valley communities who lost their jobs in the days of heavy industry and have found it difficult to get back into work. To that extent, I am delighted that levels of economic inactivity are falling and that there was a 54,000 cut in economic inactivity last year. That is the first time that that has happened for a very long time.
	In respect of the Wales Office, I say to the hon. Gentleman that he either wants a strong Wales Office or he does not. Of course, Plaid Cymru wants to abolish the Wales Office as it wants independence for Wales and does not want anybody representing it in the United Kingdom Government.

Betty Williams: Does my right hon. Friend agree that jobs in the manufacturing industry in Wales are crucial to the economy? I am sure that he is aware that a joint report by the Department for Work and Pensions and the Office of Fair Trading about the UK insurance market is about to be announced. Does he agree that some manufacturing companies in Wales will look keenly at the findings of that investigation, because their survival will be decided in relation to the heavy burden of insurance policies on such companies?

Peter Hain: The Government are addressing the issue, but I am sure that my hon. Friend will want to join me in welcoming the 25,000 new manufacturing jobs that have been created in Wales in the past year and, in particular, the reports in recent days that new optimism and opportunity are opening up for Welsh exporters as a result of the strengthening of the euro against the pound. That has provided a big window for Wales, especially in Europe.

Nigel Evans: On behalf of the Opposition, may I wish the Secretary of State best wishes for his happy event on 14 June?
	Since the Secretary of State came to his post, we have seen a massive decline in the manufacturing industry. The latest big name closure is that of LG in Newport, with the loss almost 1,000 jobs. Does he put that miserable record down to the fact that he has not been paying enough attention to Wales?

Peter Hain: We have created 68,000 new jobs in Wales in the past year. Employment has increased to record levels from the miserable level under the Tories. Some 25,000 new manufacturing jobs have been created. Yes, the LG closure is a disappointment. The project involved about £247 million of public money and was supported by one of the hon. Gentleman's predecessors, the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), then Secretary of State for Wales. It has shown that what we should do is disperse our investment support across a much wider base of economic activity rather than concentrate it in one prestige project, which found that it could not continue its activity because of world demand.

Nigel Evans: The Minister is not dispersing support, but dispersing manufacturing jobs in Wales—that is the problem. Order books have contracted for the past six months and exports are down for the past four months. Instead of swanning around Europe selling out British interests on the European Convention, should he not be spending more time listening to the voices of manufacturers talking about matters such as the climate change levy and the extra burdens of red tape and offer an apology for the 1 per cent. jobs tax that his Government introduced last April? Manufacturing is in meltdown in Wales, and the Government must act before more thousands of jobs are exported to his beloved Europe.

Peter Hain: The hon. Gentleman obviously swotted very hard for that question, but we should stick to the facts. The reality is that for the seventh consecutive month business activity in Wales remains above the British average, that the latest export figures for Wales show a rise of 9 per cent. on the fourth quarter of last year compared with the same period a year ago, and that Welsh companies are doing better than other British companies. The hon. Gentleman wants to run down manufacturing in Wales. I recently visited the finest and largest manufacturing centre in Britain—Airbus in Broughton, which is an example of more manufacturing jobs being created in Wales. Some 25,000 new manufacturing jobs were created last year, compared with the dreadful record of the Tories, who massacred our manufacturing sector.

Defence Aviation and Research Agency

John Smith: When he last met the Secretary of State for Defence to discuss the progress of the Red Dragon Project at RAF St Athan; and if he will make a statement.

Don Touhig: I welcome the fact that the construction of a new state-of-the-art repair and maintenance facility by the Defence and Aviation Repair Agency at its headquarters base in St. Athan is under way. The DARA development will also be the focus for wider plans by the Welsh Development Agency to develop a high-tech aerospace park at St. Athan. That leading-edge facility will secure and create around 4,000 new jobs.

John Smith: I thank my hon. Friend for his reply. I, too, am delighted to hear that the £80 million super-hangar that is being constructed in my constituency in the Vale of Glamorgan is well on schedule. However, when he next meets the Secretary of State for Defence, will he seek an assurance that during the construction of the hangar sufficient work is directed to DARA from the Ministry of Defence to maintain current manning levels? I fear that if that assurance is not forthcoming, a large number of highly skilled, highly paid jobs could be at risk over the next 12 to 18 months.

Don Touhig: I should pay tribute to my hon. Friend. No one has worked harder to secure that development in his constituency. He is a model constituency MP and deserves to be re-elected with a resounding majority at the next election.
	As for the matter that he raises, I am aware of his concerns, which he has discussed with several of my ministerial colleagues. I shall certainly bring his remarks to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence. In saying that, I should also point out that Wales is currently doing very well out of defence industry contracts, including Oshkosh, General Dynamics and Cogent. The Red Dragon project in my hon. Friend's constituency is the icing on the cake.

Lembit �pik: Will the Minister actively support a strategy to make Wales a global aerospace centre of excellence, with projects such as Red Dragon in the south and related civil and military aerospace projects in north and mid-Wales, where our regional airport structure and manufacturing companies, such as the beleaguered KTH company, might be well suited?

Don Touhig: The hon. Gentleman makes a good and important point. I re-emphasise what I said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) about the Welsh Development Agency's development of the aerospace park project at St. Athan. That is central to what the hon. Gentleman wants to achieve. I am sure that, working together in partnership with the Government here in Westminster, a Labour Government in Cardiff and the WDA, we will achieve it.

Local Government Elections

Kevin Brennan: What consultations he has had with the First Minister on the date of the local government elections in Wales.

Peter Hain: I have discussed with the First Minister my view that, although the date of local government elections is a matter for the National Assembly, it should be combined with the European elections a month later.

Kevin Brennan: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. Would it not also make sense if, as well as having the Euro elections and the council elections on the same day, both elections took the form of an all-postal ballot? If European countries can have different systems for the European parliamentary elections, why cannot we in the United Kingdom opt to conduct ours via an all-postal ballot system, so as to increase the turnout and give greater to access to voters?

Peter Hain: My hon. Friend makes a valid point. The Government are considering this matter and trying to encourage more postal voting. Indeed, many more postal votes were cast in Walesthere were four times as many in my own boroughas there were in the last Assembly elections. That is an encouraging trend, but my hon. Friend raises a valid point.

Roger Williams: A commission recently reported on electoral arrangements for local government in Wales and made recommendations about the introduction of voting at 16 and the use of a proportional system for voting. What discussions has the Secretary of State had with colleagues in the Assembly about introducing those recommendations?

Peter Hain: None.

Nigel Evans: I am horrified by the Secretary of State's first response. The local elections were moved by a full 12 months so that they would not be on the same day as the Welsh Assembly elections, and the turnout was a miserable 38 per cent. I know that the Secretary of State is not keen for the people of Wales to have a say in how they are governed, but will he please give an assurance that the local election date will not be moved by another month? Also, while we are at it, let us have a vote on the European Convention.

Peter Hain: I shall come back to the question of Europe in a minute, if you will allow me to do so, Mr. Speaker. On the Welsh side of the hon. Gentleman's question, the turnout in the English local elections was only 30 per cent. The Government are planning to hold the European elections and the English local elections, including the Greater London elections, on the same day next June. There is a strong case for doing the same in Wales. On Europe, this Labour Government have held more referendums than any other Government. [Interruption.] The Conservatives have never held a referendum on anything. The treaty that will come out of the European Convention will be subject to exactly the same parliamentary procedures. [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Agency Workers

Henry Bellingham: When he next expects to meet representatives of employment agencies to discuss the use of agency workers in the small firm sector in Wales.

Don Touhig: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I have no plans to meet representatives of the Wales and south-west region of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation. However, we would be happy to meet them if asked.

Henry Bellingham: I am sorry that the Minister is not going to meet them in the near future, because has he had a chance to consider the possible impact of the agency workers directive on the recruitment of temporary staff in Wales? Is he aware that the CBI has estimated that the directive could cost more than 60,000 jobs in Wales alone? Surely, if he and the Secretary of State really want to help manufacturing, they will do all that they can to stop that job-destroying directive.

Don Touhig: The hon. Gentleman has raised this matter about seven times in the House. He is certainly persistent and diligent in pursuing it, and I do not criticise him for that. Yesterday, at the Employment and Social Policy Council, my hon. Friend the Minister for Employment Relations, Industry and the Regions at the Department of Trade and Industry failed to reach agreement on the Commission's proposals. The British Government's position is that we will continue to work for a directive that gets the right balance between protecting agency workers and protecting their jobs.

Julie Morgan: Does my hon. Friend welcome the opportunity for the small firms sector that will arise from the welcome news today that Celsa is to restart steelmaking on the ASW site in Cardiff? Will he do all that he can to ensure that the jobs that might be advertised by employment agencies go to redundant steelworkers from ASW?

Don Touhig: I do indeed welcome the news that the project that Celsa is engaged in at the former ASW plant in Cardiff is to go ahead. I take note of my hon. Friend's point, and I would say that any agency recruiting workers for Celsa in Cardiff would certainly have to look in the first instance at the former employees of ASW. Their skills are in very high demand, and I have no doubt that the quality work force who were treated so badly by ASW will provide an excellent work force for Celsa.

National Health Service

Angela Watkinson: If he will make a statement on the national health service in Wales.

Peter Hain: Under our Government the national health service in Wales has been receiving record investment, and record numbers of patients are being seen.

Angela Watkinson: The Health and Social Care Bill says that foundation hospitals will provide goods and services from the NHS for people in England. Why is Wales excluded, given that 26,000 people from Wales seek treatment in England each year?

Peter Hain: One of the Conservatives' problems is their inability to recognise that devolution was designed to allow different parts of the United Kingdom to do things differently. That is what is happening in Wales. The hon. Lady does not, of course, advertise the fact that the Conservatives believe in 20 per cent. cuts in health spending. [Interruption.] Oh yes, they do. Their leader has advocated those cuts. Moreover, the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), a former Secretary of State for Wales, says that 20 per cent. is not enough. What does the hon. Lady believe in, and what does the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) believe in?

Gareth Thomas: Despite what is said by the knockers in the Conservative party who presided over a long-term decline in the health service, is it not the case that under this Government a record number of new hospitals have been built, a record number of nurses have been recruited, and a new cancer centre has been built at Glan Clwyd hospital in my constituency?

Peter Hain: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Under the Conservatives, 100 hospitals were closed in Wales. Under Labour, 10 new hospitals are being built or have already opened. We are recruiting 3,500 more NHS staff, an extra 6,000 nurses, an extra 525 consultants and 175 more GPs. That is an excellent record, compared with the dreadful record of the Tories.

Hywel Williams: What discussions has the Secretary of State had with colleagues here and in Cardiff about the impact of the establishment of foundation hospitals along the border with Wales? What has been the effect of recruitment of staff from Welsh hospitals, and the treatment of patients from Welsh hospitals in the English foundation hospitals?

Peter Hain: Obviously patients have the right to cross the border in either direction, but we are keeping the matter under close review, and I have already discussed it with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health.

Coal Miners' Compensation

Win Griffiths: When the Welsh sub-group of the coal health claims monitoring Group last met; and what assessment was made of the effectiveness of the claims procedures.

Don Touhig: The Welsh sub-group last met on 7 April, when I was delighted to welcome my hon. Friends the Members for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) and for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Havard) as members.
	The progress on payments under both the respiratory disease and the vibration white finger schemes in Wales speaks volumes for the valuable contribution made by the group.

Win Griffiths: I thank my hon. Friend for his answer, but could he be a bit more precise and let me know what criteria[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. There is far too much noise in the Chamber. It is unfair.

Win Griffiths: Could my hon. Friend tell me what criteria are used to determine priorities when the miner's estate is the beneficiary, and what is the current position relating to payments in Wales and specifically in my constituency?

Don Touhig: I can tell my hon. Friend that 4.5 million has been paid for respiratory disease in his constituency, 1.3 million has been paid under the vibration white finger scheme, and 228 million has been paid for respiratory disease throughout Wales. We may not be able to see light at the end of the tunnel, but at least we can see the tunnel for the first time.
	The priorities are the oldest miners, the most ill, and the widows. As for estate claims, if there is any indication of a short life expectancy the process may be accelerated and the claim considered more urgently. We will, however, look at cases individually. I pay tribute to the Minister for Energy and Construction, who has been wonderfully supportive in especially difficult cases, helping to secure for our miners the justice that they so richly deserve.

Adam Price: There is one group of former miners in Wales on which there has been absolutely no progressnot a single penny has been paid. I refer, of course, to those who worked in the private mines. Since those mines were licensed by the National Coal Board, which received a levy on every tonne of coal produced, do not the Government have a responsibility to those men, whose suffering is every bit as real as that of those who worked in the nationalised industry?

Don Touhig: I recognise the justice of the hon. Gentleman's point. Our monitoring group has discussed that issue, which continues to be the subject of discussions between solicitors representing the claimants and the Department of Trade and Industry. We have done everything we possibly can to bring the matter to the top of the agenda.

National Assembly Elections

Nicholas Winterton: What assessment he has made of the level of voter turnout in the last elections for the National Assembly for Wales on 1 May.

Peter Hain: The turnout in the recent Assembly elections was disappointing and the Government and the Electoral Commission are looking at ways of addressing that issue.

Nicholas Winterton: The Secretary of State is absolutely right. The actual turnout for the Assembly elections in Wales was extremely disappointing at 38 per cent. If that had been the turnout at a general election, the House would be bewailing the end of representative democracy. Does it not show that the people of Wales do not believe their Assembly is worth anything at all and that their local government and this House are where decisions are made? When will he understand that devolution is not always the answer to the problem?

Peter Hain: Presumably, exactly the same logic applies to the borough of Macclesfield, where the turnout was just 30 per cent.[Interruption.] Does the hon. Gentleman suggest, therefore, that that item of representative democracy should disappear? Of course not.

Nicholas Winterton: It is very well represented.

Peter Hain: The hon. Gentleman is a great patriot for MacclesfieldI will not take that from himand an excellent Member of Parliament but the truth is that turnout in all elections at every level has been falling across the democratic world. It is a great concern and we should all address it seriously.

Llew Smith: Does the Secretary of State accept that the reason for the low turnout in the Assembly elections is probably that voters did not believe that the Assembly was relevant to the problems in the communities? If we are to increase the turnout in the next Assembly election, can he advise the leadership of the Assembly to stop wasting money on projects such as the glorified opera house in Cardiff bay, which cost 100 million, and instead spend that money to create jobs in some of the most deprived valley communities?

Peter Hain: It is important that we recognise that Cardiff and Wales should be going for world-class excellence in every area. The valley communities that my hon. Friend and I represent are part of that drive to make Wales a world-class nation. In respect of turnout, I do not think that one can draw the conclusion that he has reached. The turnout at the Scottish elections was much lower but the Scottish Parliament has greater powers. The turnout at the last general election was lower than at the previous one. We must address the issue across democratic politics on a non-party basis.

Higher and Further Education

Alan Howarth: What plans he has to encourage closer links between higher education and further education institutions in Wales.

Don Touhig: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I are very aware of the Assembly Cabinet's strategy for reconfiguration within the Welsh continuing education sector. We strongly welcome the progress that is being made towards greater collaboration between higher education and further education institutions in Wales.

Alan Howarth: Will my hon. Friend continue to study the proposals from University of Wales college, Newport and Coleg Gwent for close integration of the work of the two institutions to enable students in south-east Wales to progress seamlessly to higher levels of skills and qualification, and will he commend that model elsewhere in Wales and the United Kingdom?

Don Touhig: I join my right hon. Friend in welcoming the important work on closer links between Coleg Gwent and the University of Wales college, Newport. I know that he takes a keen interest in that issue. I also welcome the support being given by the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales for that reconfiguration and closer collaboration. A total of 5.3 million is being made available across the principality. I will continue to take an interest in the progress on that work. Those close links are important to the development of education in Wales.

Broadband

John Robertson: What discussions he has had with National Assembly colleagues regarding implementation of the Broadband Wales programme.
	May I congratulate my right hon. Friend

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must first wait for the answer.

Peter Hain: That is always wise, Mr. Speaker.
	I have regular bilateral meetings with National Assembly colleagues, and Broadband Wales is one of the many subject areas discussed.

John Robertson: I apologise, Mr. SpeakerI was so excited about getting in on Wales questions. May I congratulate my right hon. Friend and his colleagues in the National Assembly on the roll-out of broadband in Wales, and on the 110 million that has been invested to ensure affordable broadband in the region? Does he agree that the roll-out of broadband is as important in Wales as it is in Scotland, that it is rapidly improving and that a celtic alliance between the two nations should be supported?

Peter Hain: The answer is yes, and I welcome the highest talent from all parts of the House to Wales questions.

PRIME MINISTER

The Prime Minister was asked

Engagements

Oona King: If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 4 June.

Tony Blair: This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I will have further such meetings later today.

Oona King: UN weapons inspectors said 12 weeks ago that it was their strong presumption that Saddam Hussein had not destroyed, among other things, 10,000 litres of anthrax, 80 tonnes of mustard gas and large quantities of VX nerve agent. Where are these weapons and what does the Prime Minister say to allegations that their threat has been exaggerated? Does he share my hope that one day, every leader who gases, tortures and buriesdead and alivehundreds and thousands of his own people will be removed by force?

Tony Blair: In relation to weapons of mass destruction, my hon. Friend is of course right to say that it was accepted by the entire international community, and not least by the UN Security Council, that Saddam Hussein did indeed have weapons of mass destruction and was a threat to the security of the world, which is why the resolution was passed last November. In respect of the search for weapons of mass destruction, I would point out to the House that the Iraq survey group, which is 1,300 to 1,400-strong, is literally now just beginning its work, because the priority after the conflict was to rebuild Iraq and to make sure that the humanitarian concerns of the Iraqi people were achieved. Perhaps I can take this opportunity to inform the House that the Intelligence and Security Committee actually contacted the Government in early May to conduct an inquiry into the role of intelligence in Iraq. I welcome this and I can assure the House that the Government will co-operate fully with it.
	As for my hon. Friend's other point, I hope that we all recognise that in addition to the weapons of mass destruction issue, as I saw for myself in Iraq, the people of Iraq, whatever the problems of rebuilding that country, are delighted that a brutal dictator who murdered hundreds of thousands of their people has gone. And the British Army and the British people should be proud of the role that this country played in removing him.

Iain Duncan Smith: The Leader of the House has said that rogue elements within the intelligence services are undermining the Government and that their numbers are growing. Does the Prime Minister agree with him?

Tony Blair: It is obvious from what the Today programme has saidif that source is to be believedthat of course there was somebody from within the intelligence community who spoke to the media. But I want to say that the security services and intelligence services do a superb job on behalf of this country. Over the six years that I have been Prime Minister, they have been magnificent in the information that they have given, in their professionalism and in their integrity.

Iain Duncan Smith: The question is not the Today programme but that the Leader of the House made very serious allegations about the security services. I agree with the Prime Minister that the security services fulfil a monumental role on behalf of the Government, but the Leader of the House said that they are seeking deliberately to undermine the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister can clear this up right now. Can he tell us how senior he believes these people are and how many of them there are, and what he intends to do about these allegations?

Tony Blair: In fairness to the Leader of the House, he did not say that the security services were engaged in anything, but that somebody from the security services was talkingand it is pretty obvious that that is the case. The right hon. Gentleman asks me who it is and how senior, but according to the BBC, the source is anonymous, so obviously I do not know. There is serious point in what the right hon. Gentleman says, but I do not believe that the person who is talking is a member of the Joint Intelligence Committee and I want to make it clear to the HouseI have spoken and conferred with the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committeethat there was no attempt, at any time, by any official, or Minister, or member of No. 10 Downing street staff, to override the intelligence judgments of the Joint Intelligence Committee. That includes the judgment about the so-called 45 minutes. It was a judgment made by the Joint Intelligence Committee and by that committee alone.

Iain Duncan Smith: But the Prime Minister is equivocating. [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Let the Leader of the Opposition speak.

Iain Duncan Smith: The Leader of the House, in an interview with The Times and on the Today programme, did not talk about one person, but about a growing number of members of the security services. The Leader of the House made allegations about the security services[Hon. Members: Oh!]and the Prime Minister is not supporting him. We are also hearing allegations from others in the security services that the Prime Minister misled Parliament and the country in the run-up to the war. Those are highly serious allegations. Surely the essential way to deal with the problem is for the Prime Minister to publish the dossier given to him by the JIC before the one that he published in September. Will he do that today?

Tony Blair: In relation to all those issues, the Intelligence and Security Committee is at full liberty to go through all the Joint Intelligence Committee assessments and produce a report on them. Because of the importance of the issue, it is only right that a report be published so that people can make a judgment on it. However, the claims that have been made are simply false. In particular, the claim that the readiness of Saddam to use weapons within 45 minutes of an order to use them was a point inserted in the dossier at the behest of No. 10 is completely and totally untrue. Furthermore, the allegation that the 45-minute claim provoked disquiet among the intelligence community, which disagreed with its inclusion in the dossierI have discussed it, as I said, with the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committeeis also completely and totally untrue. Instead of hearing from one or many anonymous sources, I suggest that if people have any evidence, they actually produce it.

Iain Duncan Smith: But the Leader of the House is not an anonymous source. The Prime Minister stands in his place saying that these allegations are wrong. If so, and if he did not add the 45-minute point to the dossier, why will he not publish the dossier given him by the JIC before he finally published the one in September? Surely that would clear up the point, because it was given to him as evidence that could be put in the public domain. He can do that now and clear the matter up. Of course we welcome the fact that the Intelligence and Security Committee will look into it, but I remind the whole House that the Prime Minister will let that Committee see only the intelligence reports that he wants it to see. It reports directly to him and he can withhold any part of, or all of, its reports. However, the Committee is being asked to investigate the Prime Minister's role and that of his closest advisers. Given the allegations made by the Leader of the House today, surely the only way to clear up the problem is to have an independent inquiry?

Tony Blair: As far as I am aware, the Leader of the House was not making an allegation about the intelligence being wrong. On the contrary, he was rebutting the allegation that the intelligence was wrong. In relation to the Intelligence and Security Committee, it is not true that I will withhold from it the Joint Intelligence Committee assessments. I will give it all the JIC assessments. In addition, the Committee can, in accordance with its normal practice, interview those people in the security services who drew up the JIC reports. That is surely a fair way to proceed. I will then publish the report.
	If I may say so to the right hon. Gentleman, he had intelligence briefings as well. I suspect that the problem for him is that he has been wondering over the past few days whether to jump on this particular bandwagon or not, and he has made the wrong choice.

Iain Duncan Smith: rose

Hon. Members: More!

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Iain Duncan Smith: The allegations made by the Leader of the House today have changed everything. He is alleging that elements of the security services are actually seeking to undermine the Government. The Prime Minister cannot pretend that this is just a simple and small issue. The whole credibility of his Government rests on clearing up these charges. I simply say to the Prime Minister that these allegations are not going to go away. He has one former Cabinet Minister who says that he has duped the Cabinet; another says that he committed a monumental blunder; and, today, the Leader of the House has attacked members of the security services. Surely the reality is that the only way is to hold an independent judicial inquiry, if he will not produce the evidence, and to do it today.

Tony Blair: I have already said that we will produce all the evidence for the Intelligence and Security Committee. I really think that that is the sensible and right way to proceed. It can then come to a considered judgment and I will publish the report. I repeat that all the allegations that have been made are completely without any substance. Indeed, if the right hon. Gentleman wants me to, I shall go through a few more. For example, it was reported that there was a meeting in New York between the Foreign Secretary and Colin Powell in which they expressed their doubts about weapons of mass destruction. On the day concerned, the Foreign Secretary was in France. As for the allegation in The Mail on Sunday that the German Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, ambushed me over weapons of mass destructionlies. I have the following statement from the German embassy:
	The German embassy rejects in the strongest possible terms your
	The Mail on Sunday's
	claims made on today's front page article . . . The content and the quotations attributed to Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer are pure fiction.
	That at least is consistent. It was alleged that the source for the 45 minute claim was an Iraqi defector of dubious reliability. He was not an Iraqi defector and he was an established and reliable source.

Iain Duncan Smith: The truth is that nobody believes a word that the Prime Minister is saying now. [Interruption.] That is the truth. We now have the unedifying sight of the Leader of the House being sent out to do the Prime Minister's bidding and to attack elements of the security services, which is disgraceful. Will the Prime Minister either publish that dossier right now, or hold an independent inquiry so that the public can judge for themselves?

Tony Blair: Again, let me point out to the right hon. Gentleman that what the Leader of the House was saying was what was clearly true, which is that there were people speaking anonymously to the media. I want to repeat, however, that in respect of Iraq and of every issue that I have handled over the past few years, our intelligence services have been absolutely magnificent.
	I say, with the greatest respect to the right hon. Gentleman, that the fact is that in the end there have been many claims made about the Iraq conflict. It was claimed that hundreds of thousands of people were going to die in it; that it would be my Vietnam; that the middle east would be in flames; andthe latest claimthat weapons of mass destruction were a complete invention by the British Government. The truth is that some people resent the fact that it was right to go to conflict. We won the conflict; thanks to the magnificent contribution of the British troops, Iraq is now free, and we should be proud of that.

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Andrew Dismore: May I remind my right hon. Friend of the serious school funding problems in my constituency? While there are arguments about whether the Government provided enough money or whether the local authority has passed on all that it should have done, parents and teachers are not bothered about who is at fault. They look to us to sort out the problems, to make sure that there is enough money for this year, and that there is no repeat next year. Will my right hon. Friend do all that he can to get to the bottom of the story of what has gone wrong this year and guarantee that sufficient money will be made available next year to ensure that education in schools in my constituency is of the high standard that we have come to expect?

Tony Blair: Again, let me say that I totally understand the concerns that my hon. Friend raises. They are the reason why Ministers have had several meetings with representatives of the Barnet authority. As my honourable Friend knows, Barnet received a 7 per cent. floor increase in education formula spending share per pupil. That was a significant uplift, but it is true that some schools still have problems. We are working hard to see exactly where those problems are located and how to deal with them. However, along with a significant uplift in pension contributions and extra teachers' pay, there has been real pressure on local education authority budgets. In some cases, the full amount of education spending has not been passed through. We need to make sure that it is passed through. That is what we are looking at, in respect of both this year and next year.

Charles Kennedy: The Prime Minister is saying that more time is needed and asking for public patience when it comes to finding categoric evidence of weapons of mass destruction, but does he not understand that many people, in this country and internationally, treat that with some scepticism? More time and a degree of patience with regard to the progress already being made were exactly what Dr. Hans Blix appealed to the UN for. The Prime Minister was unwilling to extend that courtesy to Dr. Blix, despite having voted for it. Why then does he expect people to extend that courtesy to him?

Tony Blair: For two reasons, the situation is completely different. First of all, what I said in relation to Hans Blix: I do not have the words in front of me now, but I think that what I said in this House, when asked many times, was that, if Saddam was co-operating fully, time was not the issue. The process could take as much time as Dr. Blix needed. However, if Saddam was not co-operating fullyand even Dr. Blix found that he was notthat meant that Saddam was in breach of resolution 1441.
	The second point is that of course the situation is different now that Saddam has been removed from power. The first priority after the conflictand this, quite rightly, is the reason for the pressure on usis to take the humanitarian and reconstruction measures necessary to put Iraq back on its feet. The Iraq survey group is 1,300 or 1,400 strong, and it is the main group charged with going into Iraq, investigating all the sites and interviewing the scientists and witnesses. That group is starting its work nowliterally now. The reason I ask people to be patient is that the group has just gone into Iraq: it should be allowed to get on with its job, investigate the sites, interview the witnesses and then report back to us.

Charles Kennedy: If the Prime Minister acknowledges that public scepticism exists, rightly or wrongly, will he acknowledge also that it is liable to be increased by the comments of the Leader of the House about the rogue elements in the security services? Who are the public to trust if the Government are letting it be known that they cannot wholeheartedly trust their own security services? Does not that underline the need for a fully independent judicial review of just what has gone on?

Tony Blair: The intelligence that formed the basis of the dossier that we put out last September was based on Joint Intelligence Committee assessments. There was never any question of Ministers, officials or anyone else trying to override that. With the greatest respect to the right hon. Gentleman, the Intelligence and Security Committee will be able to go through all those intelligence assessments. If the Committee wants to refer to those assessments, it can. That will then be published in its report. Rather than having allegations made by anonymous sources that are completely untrue, is it not better that people with evidence should present it to the Intelligence and Security Committee and allow that Committee to make a judgment?
	The right hon. Gentleman says that there is scepticism about the matter, but perhaps he should go back and look at some of the words that he has used and the false allegations that he has made. Then he will see where the scepticism might have originated.

Middle East

Win Griffiths: What plans he has to visit Bethlehem before 25 December to discuss progress on a settlement of the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis.

Tony Blair: I have no current plans to do so.

Win Griffiths: I am sorry to hear the Prime Minister say that. Christmas could not be celebrated last year in Bethlehem because of the fighting between Israelis and Palestinians. International voluntary workers, including Alistair Hillmans, a constituent of mine, were illegally arrested by the Israelis on territory that is not theirs. Given the new determination under the new middle east peace planthe road mapwould it not be good if the Prime Minister could say, I will be in Bethlehem to celebrate Christmas this year.? Would it not be good if such towns as Jenin, Tulkarm, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Dura and Dhahiriya were all part of a consolidated Palestinian state?

Tony Blair: My hon. Friend's point is right. It is important to do all that we can to make sure that there is freedom of access to Bethlehem this year. As he rightly points out, as a result of the situation in the middle east, people were not able to celebrate Christmas in Bethlehem last year. However, it is worth pointing out that, for the first time in several years, we have the prospect of the peace process in the middle east moving forward. I very much welcome the initiative that President Bush has taken in that regard. If we can get some sort of normalisation under way, I have no doubt that it should include access to Bethlehem. I am sure that that will be one of the points that those who are trying to negotiate the first steps in reviving the peace process will take into account.

Richard Shepherd: Why does the Prime Minister not grasp the nettle and reaffirm the probity and efficacy of his Government by holding a clear judicial inquiry into the matters that are of public concern?

Tony Blair: I have answered the allegations that people have put. I have answered them not only on my own behalf, but on behalf of the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee. There is a proper way of proceeding. The all-party Intelligence and Security Committee will look into these matters, as it has asked to do, and will make a report. The specific allegation made about the 45 minutes is one that the Committee is perfectly able to investigate and reach conclusions on. I hope that if it concludes that what I have said from the Dispatch Box is correct, our security servicesnever mind the Governmentwill receive an apology from those people who made that allegation.

Engagements

Julie Morgan: Will the Prime Minister join me in congratulating Liverpool on becoming the European capital of culture? Will he also congratulate Cardiff, which put in a great bid, and the other cities on the shortlist? What plans are there to build on the success and momentum created in Cardiff and the other shortlisted cities?

Tony Blair: I offer my warm congratulations to Liverpool on becoming the European capital of culture. For my own safety, I should point out that the decision was taken on a recommendation by an independent committee

Andrew MacKinlay: Publish the evidence!

Tony Blair: There is an established and reliable source for that, anyway.
	My commiserations go, of course, to those cities, not just Cardiff, that made fantastic efforts in their bids. Because they have done so well, the Government intend to invest a particular sum to ensure that those cities that did not win, because Liverpool did, will still be given a chance to develop as cities of culture.

Mark Hoban: The governors at Neville Lovett community school in my constituency are likely to have to disband its learning support unit in order to balance the books. Does the Prime Minister think it right that those who need support in their education are likely to lose it because the Government have not got their sums right on school funding?

Tony Blair: Obviously, I do not know the situation in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. However, we have put in a huge increase in his area, Hampshire, over the past few years, and there was a particularly large increase this year. I cannot say for sure exactly how the money has been allocated by the local education authority, but I do say to Conservative Members who say that they want even more money to go into education that it is curious to demand that when their policy has been not to support extra investment, but to cut it by 20 per cent. across the board.

Robin Cook: Does the Prime Minister recall saying in the September debate that we knew that Saddam had been trying to buy uranium from Africa? Has he been advised since then that it is accepted that the documents on which that claim was based were forged? I have never questioned the good faith of my right hon. Friend, so could he not save the Intelligence and Security Committee a lot of time in its inquiry by correcting the record now on the alleged uranium from Africa, and on the alleged weapons ready in 45 minutes, and say that he regrets that, in all good faith, he gave the House information that has since turned out to be wrong?

Tony Blair: No, I am afraid that I have to say to my right hon. Friend that I will not do that, for this reason. There are two quite separate allegations. My right hon. Friend started with the allegation about uranium from Africa. There was intelligence to that effect. I shall not go into the details of the particular intelligence, but at the time it was judged by the Joint Intelligence Committee to be correct. Until we investigate properly, we are simply not in a position to say whether that is so. In respect of the 45 minutes, however, that is a wholly different allegation. I have to say to my right hon. Friend that the Joint Intelligence Committee made that assessment on its own behalf with no interference from anyone. I shall certainly not stand here and say that that assessment is wrong, as the committee's judgment is that it was right. The committee is in a better position to make that judgment than either me or, with respect, my right hon. Friend.

Sue Doughty: Yet again, Greenpeace has today highlighted the use by the Government, in the Home Office, of timber from unsustainable sources. Will the Prime Minister accept that the use of unsustainable timber must be stopped[Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. The House must let the hon. Lady ask her question. [Hon. Members: Why?] Because her name is on the Order Paper and she is entitled to ask a question.

Sue Doughty: There is evidence from Greenpeace. We should declare war on the illegal use of timber and end the mass destruction of forests once and for all.

Tony Blair: I am getting instructions from further along the Bench. Is this to do with a fence around Marsham street?

Sue Doughty: indicated assent.

Tony Blair: I regret to say that, along with everything else, I am not 100 per cent. up to speed about the fence around Marsham street. The Home Secretary seems to be disputing rather vigorously the claim that is being made.

Bob Russell: Well, he would.

Tony Blair: Probably he would. I shall look into the matter and drop the hon. Member for Guildford (Sue Doughty) a line about it. It may be an issue to take up with the contractors rather than with the Government.

Iraq

Tam Dalyell: What action he has taken since 14 May to gather documentation in relation to weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Tony Blair: We believe that documents relating to Iraq's WMD programmes have been carefully concealed, including at the homes of scientists and other personnel connected with those programmes. As I informed the House a moment or two ago, a new organisation, the Iraq survey group, has been set up to take charge of the search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, among other things. The group will harness intelligence resources and the investigatory skills of about 1,300 to 1,400 staff from the US, the UK and Australia. It will subsume the existing smaller operations and investigations being carried out by the US military. It will also include former United Nations arms inspectors, and it represents a significant expansion of effort in the coalition hunt for weapons of mass destruction.

Tam Dalyell: Tonight at 7 o'clock, Mr. Speaker has given me an Adjournment debate on the situation in detention of Tariq Aziz. Could the Prime Minister ask the junior Minister at the Foreign Office who will be replying to the debate to enlarge on the processes by which the documentation that is found may relate to trials, not only of Tariq Aziz but of some others? Do we not have to be rather careful, whatever our views, about victors' justice? Surely those people have to be brought to trial one way or another?

Tony Blair: I agree with my hon. Friend: they have to be brought to trial in a proper way. That is something that we are discussing at present both with our allies and with the United Nations. I shall certainly pass on to my hon. Friend, the Foreign Office Minister who will reply to the debate, the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) has made. I hope, however, that he will recognise and support us in one thing. Sometimes over the past few days, it has been almost as if the whole issue of Saddam and weapons of mass destruction were a curious invention. The weapons of mass destruction issue and Saddam have been around for 12 years in the UN, as have Saddam's efforts at concealment.
	When I was replying to my right hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook), I forgot one point. It is sometimes said that it is very curious that, if those weapons were ready to fire, they were not found immediately. The answer to that lies in the very point we made in the dossier, which is that once Saddam started to realise that United Nations inspectors were coming back in, as I think I said continually at the Dispatch Box, there was then a concerted campaign of concealment of the weapons. Indeed, I think I also saidif not at this Dispatch Box, then elsewhere publiclythat one benefit of that, although there were obviously a lot of problems with it, was that it would make it more difficult to reassemble those weapons; but that does not in any shape or form dispute the original intelligence.
	As for the other point that my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow makes, about the tribunal and how these people are tried, I can assure him that if they are tried they should be tried according to proper and due process.

Elfyn Llwyd: Those of us who argued that the conflict in Iraq was illegal continually had the whole issue of weapons of mass destruction thrown at us by the right hon. Gentleman and others. Is it not high time to have a full public inquiry? It is not good enough for the Prime Minister to rely on a report by the Joint Intelligence Committee, because he can be selective as to what he produces, and when all is said and done, the Committee is answerable to him.

Tony Blair: I suspect that whatever we did would not be good enough for the hon. Gentleman. The fact is that he and his colleagues were opposed to this from the very beginning, and from the moment the conflict ended and all their predictions of disaster turned out to be untrue, they have been looking for a way of getting back into the argument, saying it was all a terrible mistake.
	Let me tell the hon. Gentleman one thing. I have been to Iraq and spoken to those Iraqi people; yes, it is true that there is an enormous job of reconstruction to be done in that country, but seeing the literally tens of thousands of bodies in mass graves uncovered in Iraq, and realising that these people had been deprived of freedom for decade upon decade, let us be thankful that someone who was a threat with his weapons of mass destruction and also a brutal tyrant has been removed once and for all.

G8 Summit

Tony Blair: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I will make a statement about the G8 summit in France.
	I pay tribute to President Chirac's very skilful chairmanship in guiding our deliberations. We reached significant conclusions on the middle east, on weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, and on Africa and sustainable development. In addition, we committed ourselves to strengthening the conditions for growth in the world economy. In all, 16 action plans and statements were released at the summit, copies of which have been placed in the House Libraries.
	First, on the middle east, we all recognised that a solution to the Israel-Palestinian problem is not only vital for stability across the middle east but would deprive terrorists of an issue that they exploit for their own inhuman ends. I need hardly remind the House of the bleak pattern of mistrust, hatred and violence that has blighted the lives of generations of Israelis and Palestinians. Children have been growing up in an area with seemingly no prospect of peace. From the beginning of the intifada in September 2000 until the end of March this year, 2,300 Palestinians and more than 600 Israelis have been killed. There have been too many dashed hopes to be anything other than cautious in assessing the current situation, but since I last reported to the House, the road map for peace has been published, the Israeli Cabinet has accepted it and there has today been the historic meeting between President Bush and the Palestinian and Israeli Prime Ministers in Jordan.
	The whole G8 summit united behind the initiative that President Bush is taking, and fully endorsed what is now agreed on all sides as the only ultimate answer to this problem: two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace. That is an objective of historic significance both for the middle east and indeed for the whole world community, and we in the United Kingdom will continue to support it with every means at our disposal.
	Secondly, on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, there was a striking unanimity of purpose that we must urgently strengthen our co-operation in the fight against those two closely related threats. On weapons of mass destruction, we underlined that North Korea's uranium enrichment and plutonium production programmes and its failure to comply with International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards were a clear breach of its international obligations. We called on it to dismantle its nuclear weapons programmes. We emphasised the proliferation implications of Iran's advanced nuclear programme and called on Iran to sign and implement an IAEA additional protocol without delay or conditions. President Putin made it clear that in the meantime Russia would suspend its exports of nuclear fuel to Iran. Those are important steps to halt the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and I welcome them.
	In addition, we took stock of progress on the $20 billion programme launched last year to prevent terrorists from acquiring nuclear, biological or chemical materials left over from the former Soviet Union, to which Britain has made a commitment of up to $750 million. We put in place mechanisms to improve the prioritisation and co-ordination of technical assistance for countries seeking to assist in the war against terrorism. We launched new initiatives to tackle man-portable surface-to-air missiles and to tighten security controls on radioactive sources, and we agreed on measures that represent a new drive to cut off terrorist financing.
	Thirdly, on Africa and development, the summit brought about the welcome participation of many African and developing nations. We all agreed that a successful outcome to the World Trade Organisation ministerial meeting in Mexico in September and the successful completion of the development round by 2005 are of central importance. The wealthy nations of the world simply cannot any longer ask the developing world to stand on its own two feet but shut out the very access to our markets that is necessary for it to do so. Reform of the European common agricultural policy will be vital in that regard.
	In addition, we agreed to resolve all other outstanding WTO issues including the compulsory licensing of drugsthe so-called trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights, or TRIPS, questionwhich is important for poorer countries to access drugs for their people, and also essential for progress in the Doha round.
	We had extensive discussions about the problem of HIV/AIDS, which now afflicts 42 million people around the world. All of us welcomed President Bush's recent announcement of a $15 billion US initiative to combat it, and I hope that at the European summit in Greece, the European Union will agree to match the US commitment to the global health fundpotentially up to $1 billion a year. We remain on course, too, to eradicate polio from the face of the globe by 2005.
	I also set out in some detail my right hon. Friend the Chancellor's proposal to establish a new international finance facility, which could deliver a doubling of current aid flows for recipient countries committed to economic reforms and good governance. Finance Ministers have been asked to report back to leaders on the proposal by September. It is important that we now sustain the momentum behind the initiative.
	G8 leaders also took the opportunity to discuss with President Mbeki and other African leaders the good progress that we have made in partnership with the NEPADNew Partnership for Africa's Developmentleaders over the past year in implementing the Africa action plan that was launched at Kananaskis. Over the past year, we have seen the largest ever US commitment to aid for Africa, and many European Union countries, including our own, are increasing aid and development programmes substantially. Consistent with the African-led initiative, we discussed the steps that are being taken to resolve the appalling crisis in Zimbabwe. We condemned the action taken by the Zimbabwean authorities on Monday against their own people and called on the Zimbabwean Government to accept their citizens' rights to demonstrate against the regime peacefully.
	I was also pleased that we endorsed the initiative that I launched last year to reduce corruption by getting companies in the extractive industries to make public the tax and royalty payments that they make to Governments, and for those Governments to publicise their receipts. I believe that this simple idea could have a powerful impact. Transparency and increased accountability are the best defences against corruption.
	Leaders also had a full discussion on the world economy and agreed on the central importance of fostering macro-economic stability and intensifying structural reform as the essential preconditions for strengthening growth. Chancellor Schrder also briefed us on the steps that Germany is now taking to modernise its health and pensions systems and to increase the flexibility of the labour market, and President Bush expressed confidence in the strength of the US economic recovery, based on rising productivity and a pick-up in domestic demand.
	Finally, G8 Heads agreed to step up our collaboration on science and technology to help combat the long-term problem of climate change. It is crucial that we tackle this, but in ways that encourage sustainable growth and development. The G8 must lead the way, working in partnership with developing countries. We will focus on renewable energy, the hydrogen economy for transport, fuel cells and biodiversity.
	After the sharp disagreements in the world community over Iraq, the summit represented an important coming together of leading nations. In the past few weeks, we have seen the restoration of unity in the UN with resolution 1483. As important as anything else, on the very issue of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, there was a renewed sense of urgency and purpose. Of great significance, we have seen the middle east peace process, despite all the cynicism, moving forward again. Whatever the differences of the past few months, the summit showed common purpose on these key issues. It is now the task of the whole world community to build on the objectives that have been reached which are of such fundamental importance to us all and to the wider world.

Iain Duncan Smith: I thank the Prime Minister for his statement.
	The G8 meeting in Evian came at a time of rapid change in world events. Renewed optimism characterises the middle east peace process, as the right hon. Gentleman said, and we face a massive obligation to rebuild Iraq and to equip it to be governed at last by its own people. International institutions and relations between countries are still under strain, and the continent of Africa is threatened by widespread famine, the blight of HIV/AIDS and the disastrous political collapse in far too many countries.
	I begin by expressing the hopes of Conservative Members for the success of today's potentially historic meeting in Aqaba between President Bush, Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud Abbas. We support the creation of a Palestinian state living alongside a secure and respected Israel, as the Prime Minister said. We therefore join him in warmly welcoming President Bush's commitment to the great prize of peace in the middle east and realise that great perseverance will be required from all sides if that peace is to be achieved. Continuous reciprocal steps are essential for the success of the road map.
	The G8 summit talked of a comprehensive peace settlement involving Lebanon and Syria. As the Prime Minister knows, for the road map to work it must be more than just a bilateral agreement between Israel and Palestine, so how will the Lebanese and Syrian tracks, as referred to in the discussion, be integrated into that road map process? What admission in Evian did the Prime Minister receive from the Russians, Germans or French that the removal of Saddam Hussein has assisted rather than retarded the momentum towards the middle east peace settlement?
	The G8 summit represented an important opportunity for divisions between world leaders over the war in Iraq to be addressed. Some nations, such as Russia, with its willingness to halt nuclear exports to Iran, appeared more willing to address those divisions than others. We should welcome that, and I agree with the Prime Minister that that was a significant step. However, while I welcome the unanimous adoption of United Nations Security Council resolution 1483 and the more positive signs of co-operation between the G8 member states in building sustainable peace in Iraq, may I ask what is the Prime Minister's latest assessment of the timetable under which Iraq will be equipped to govern itself? Are there any hospitals that, even now, weeks after the military action has ceased, still require basic medicines and supplies? If there are, what plans are in place to ensure that that is resolved?
	On Africa, last week Bob Geldof powerfully warned that famine and disease are once again stalking that continent, and Ethiopia is running out of food. Some 8,000 people a day are dying of HIV/AIDS across the continent, and Zimbabwe has been brought to its knees by the contemptible conduct of a dictator, Robert Mugabe. I welcome the fact that the G8 at last discussed Zimbabwe. That is vital. I also welcome its condemnation of Mugabe's brutal actions and his continuing activities. What action is being taken in response to the emergency in Zimbabwe? What future action does the Prime Minister believe we can take, and what do his Government believe they will do alongside other Governments to resolve that? What action is being taken in response to the emergency in Ethiopia?
	We welcome the expressed intention of the EU heads of state to support President Bush's commendable initiative to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean. We hope that the next EU summit will at last turn those words into firm action. Does the Prime Minister think that that will be the case?
	We are surprised and disappointed that the Prime Minister's statement makes no mention of the Congo. The country is on the precipice of the most bloody ethnic genocide. The French were the first to refer to the issue of troops, and were even critical about British troop deployments, which I find a bit rich. Is it not right that France and Belgium should take the lead in ensuring that, if necessary, security forces go to the region, where historically they had such an influence, or would that in itself cause a major problem? Will the Prime Minister tell us what sort of troop deployments he believes Britain is capable of committing, and whether he considers such a commitment necessary?
	While every effort must be made to alleviate the suffering of so many Africans, we must also lay the basis for self-government in Iraq. The search for WMD must continue urgently, without let-up. I do not believe that the issues raised in this country in the past few days were about weapons of mass destruction. I believe that Saddam Hussein had them, and I hope and believe that we will find them. It is right for Britain to have liberated Iraq; the Prime Minister was right to do so. However, the reconstruction of Iraq requires that there should be a foundation of trust in the Government's actions at the time and subsequently. There is the risk of jeopardising that trust. I hope that over the past half hour, the Prime Minister has had time to reflect on the need to re-establish that trust, and that he will now review his position and grant an independent judicial inquiry.

Tony Blair: On that last point, I have said all that I need to say, except that it is a bit much that when a series of allegations are made, all of which are untrue, people say what a terrible thing it is that trust in the Government has been damaged. It is important that if people have evidence to justify allegations, they give that evidence, and so far they have not done so.
	In relation to the right hon. Gentleman's comments on the G8, the Jordan meeting is extremely important. I agree that the road map must be amplified to include the Lebanese and Syrian tracks, and it will be. That must be another dimension of moving the middle east peace process forward. It is important to recognise that America always said, and President Bush made it clear, that once the issue of Iraq was dealt with, he would move on to the middle east peace process. There is no doubt that it is much easier to make progress on that now, with the regime in Iraq changed.
	In relation to Iraq and resolution 1483, because the UN is now involved in the process again, we are better able to access support for the hospitals and the infrastructure, medicines, supplies and so on. My assessment, although obviously my visit was only brief, is that real efforts are being made by our troops and by the authorities on the ground to improve the situation as rapidly as possible, but it is a massive undertaking. One of the things that I was told by our military out in Iraq is that, for example, when the Iraqi special republican guard were retreating, they sabotaged much of the machinery, which must be replaced. As we know, looting and problems of security were experienced at some of the hospitals, but I am informed that the situation is improving. It is not improving as fast as we would like, but it is improving. However, we must be clear that the job of reconstruction is massive. That is why it is important that we redouble our efforts, and ensure that we show the same vigour in prosecuting the peace in Iraq as we did in prosecuting the war.
	As for the weapons of mass destruction, I point out again that the Iraq survey group is the body that will be able to go and interview the scientists and experts and visit the sites. There are literally thousands of sites. As I was told in Iraq, information is coming in the entire time, but it is only now that the Iraq survey group has been put together that a dedicated team of people, which includes former UN inspectors, scientists and experts, will be able to go in and do the job properly. As I have said throughout, I have no doubt that they will find the clearest possible evidence of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.
	The alternative thesis is that, having for years obstructed the UN, having had 12 years of sanctions, having kicked out the inspectors in 1998, and having invited an invasion by defying the UN, Saddam decided to get rid of the weapons of mass destruction anyway. That is an odd thesis to accept. [Interruption.] Someone is shouting out Rumsfeld. I have read carefully what the Secretary of State for Defence in the US said, and the comments of Paul Wolfowitz. It should come as no surprise that their comments have been taken completely out of context. If people read the full transcript of both interviews, they will see that what they are arguing is that it will be difficult to say exactly what has happened to the weapons until we collect the evidence through the Iraq survey group. That is precisely what we would expect. I repeat that it has always been the Government's case that there was a systematic campaign of concealment once Saddam knew that the inspectors were going back in.
	On Africa, the right hon. Gentleman made some important points. We recognise the urgency of the crisis in Ethiopia. We have raised with the European Commission the importance of Europe stepping up its efforts to get its own money through. We have already allocated 48 million of emergency aid, and we will see what more we can do.
	On HIV/AIDS, I believe that the European Union will match whatever commitment to the Global Health Fund the United States has given. It is important to realise that the $15 billion commitment of the US is not just to the Global Health Fund but to bilateral projects between the US and recipient countries. The situation is the same with us. We put hundreds of millions of dollars a year into HIV/AIDS programmes all over Africa and elsewhere, but we are also increasing our commitment to the Global Health Fund. There is recognition that this pandemic scourgethousands of people die every yearhas to be tackled. What is more, if it is not tackled, many African countries will not have the human resources to rebuild themselves.
	It is important that the summit made the statement on Zimbabwe. Measures can be taken, such as sanctions, but we must recognise the limitations on what they can achieve in Zimbabwe. The most important thing is that we work closely with the surrounding countries in Africa to get them to realise and understand that we must deal with the problem in Zimbabwe, because it threatens to blight and destroy the lives of many people, not only in that country but all over the south of Africa. We must work with the countries in the region on that.
	In respect of the Congo, we will make a UK commitment in so far as we can, but that will be for logistics and support. The French and others are willing to take the lead in the force around Bunia. The UN MONUC force is also there. I have to be frank about the fact that I do not think that these plans are in a sufficient state of readiness. We are seeing what more we can do with others to ensure that we can make a better and swifter response. I am convincedthis was also discussed at the summitthat the ultimate solution to this problem is for Africa to take on these peacekeeping tasks. That is why the UN plan that we agreed to back is so important. It will mean that in the next few years there will be properly equipped and properly trained regional peacekeeping forces all over Africa, with which the developed world can help and which can move swiftly into any conflict. The number of troops required in these situations is not great, as we found in Sierra Leone, but if they are not properly trained and equipped they cannot do the job. In the end, this is something that we have to help Africa to do for itself.

Charles Kennedy: Although there are obviously some disappointments about the summit, welcome progress has been made on a number of key fronts, not least nuclear non-proliferation, the new practical assistance for Africa in the field of peacekeeping, and the big tantalising prize of the further advancement of the middle east peace process. Let us hope that the steps under way as we speak will eventually lead to the emergence of two stable and secure states, living side by side in peace and security.
	We very much welcome the announcements on Iran and North Korea, urging them to cease their nuclear developments and to verify their progress. There is no doubt that the non-proliferation treaty must be upheld, and there is an obvious need for the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect Iran's facilities. Will the Prime Minister acknowledge that the United Kingdom must continue to preserve its balanced and sensible policy on Iran? It is distinct from the stance adopted by the United States, as he knows only too well. Will he spell out what mechanisms he would consider if the Iranians did not respond to the call issued in the past few days by the G8 membership? Will he rule out taking military action against Iran? Does he see further potential for the development of a common European front on this issue?
	It is correct to welcome the movement, such as there was, towards rapprochement among the nations that were in disagreement with our country and, primarily, with the United States over what has taken place in Iraq, although there is a great deal further to go. Does the Prime Minister acknowledge that the Germans and, perhaps to a lesser extent, the French bridle somewhat at the sight and sound of the American President arriving in continental Europe and remonstrating with those who, in a candid and upfront international way, chose to take a different view from his own and that of his Administration of what took place in Iraq?
	Does the Prime Minister share the sense of disappointment at the lack of progress on debt relief? The statements on water, sustainability and NEPAD were full of worthy sentiments but rather empty of content. Does not that pose a longer-term danger to the G8, which is losing credibility, especially in the eyes of the developing world?
	Given the aid that is being provided to Africa, which is welcome, does the Prime Minister acknowledge that those countries would benefit from a big improvement if they had the capacity to produce their own generic drugs? Does he see scope for further progress on that? What contributions are the British Government making towards such an end?
	Does the Prime Minister see scope for the cutting of farm subsidies and export credits? What is his view of the proposals from the European Union and the United States currently before the World Trade Organisation?
	Did the Prime Minister have an opportunity at the summit to raise again the position of the nine British citizens held at Camp Delta? They are in a legal no man's land. In response to the Father of the House in a different context, he referred to the need for trials. No charges have even been brought against those British citizens. That is contrary to all the principles of international justice to which our country subscribes. If the boot were on the other foot, and we were holding American citizens in a similar fashion, all hell would have broken lose on Capitol hill and we would not have heard the end of it. Did the Prime Minister have any opportunity to raise that fundamental concern about our own passport holders with the President and representatives of the United States?

Tony Blair: That last issue did not come up at the summit, but we have raised it with the US Government. I have said what I have said about it already. Obviously, that situation cannot continue indefinitely, although it is complicated by the fact that information is still coming from the people detained there. I cannot say any more than that. That information is important.
	On the middle east peace process, I think we are agreed that what is happening is an important step forward.
	It is important that Iran realises the seriousness of the international community's intent on this issue. The IAEA must be able to carry out its work without any conditions. No one is threatening military action in respect of Iran, but it must understand that the whole of the world communitythere was complete unanimity on this at the G8does not find it acceptable that this nuclear weapons programme continues to be developed in Iran. Both on that issue and in relation to the issue of terrorism and its support for terrorists, it has to understand that we are very serious about the unacceptability of these activities. We have worked very long and hard to have a proper dialogue with the Iranian Government. I welcome that and I think that it is good to do so, but it has to happen on the basis of being absolutely upfront with them about the concerns that we and the whole international community have.
	In relation to President Bush's speech in Europe, I thought that, far from being a remonstration with the Europeans, it was a reaching out to Europe. I think that he did that very effectively, and he made it very clear that there were issues such as the middle east, tackling global poverty and HIV/AIDS, on which he wanted a good and robust partnership with the European Union. Of course, he defended his position in respect of Iraq, as we would expect him to do. What is more, he was in Poland, where I had been the day before, which had fully supported our action in Iraq.
	On debt relief, we are making progress. There are certain issues to do with exactly how the heavily indebted countries programme works and the issue of topping up. We are trying to resolve those issues, but I point out to the right hon. Gentleman that, in terms of debt relief, as a result of the measure that was driven forward by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, we have now seen $62 billion worth of debt forgiven. That is very important indeed.
	On generic drugs, we have given tax relief for research on the development of those drugs by our countries in respect of diseases that are the particular problem of developing countries. We have to resolve the issue of the so-called TRIPS by the time of the WTO meeting. I hope that it will be resolved, because it is very important that, when we have the drugs that can help developing countries, we make them available to them.
	Finally, in relation to the WTO, a change has happened in the sense that the French proposals on agriculture in respect of Africa are a step forward, because they recognise in principle that export subsidies are unacceptable and should go. It was not possible to reach full agreement in respect of all the aspects of the French proposals, but they are a significant step forward. Again, I hope that there will be a coming together between all members of the European Union and the United States on the other hand so that we all make it clear that there should be a programme for phasing out the agricultural subsidies. If that does not happen, the developing world will be left in the position of being able to produce crops and carry out agricultural production, but not to gain access to our markets on a fair and equitable basis. After the G8 meeting, I am more hopeful that we will be able to resolve the matter, but it will be difficult.

Tony Worthington: I very much welcome the statement in the report that the G8 has endorsed the initiative taken by this country to ensure transparency in the oil industry and other extractive industries and the recognition that there should be publication of accounts, as corrupt leaders and companies have taken billions of pounds out of Africa. Can the Prime Minister confirm that absolutely every country will now take the legislative measures necessary to force its companies to make their accounts transparent? Can he let us know how that is to be brought into effect?

Tony Blair: On the issues to do with governance and corruption, the peer review group mechanism has been set up under NEPADthe New Partnership for Africa's Developmentand I think that about 15 or 16 countries have already agreed to submit themselves to that process, which will judge how far they have come in tackling the problems of corruption. In respect of the extractive industries, what we have agreed is that the proposal should be taken forward. The detail has got to be worked out, but it will not work, in my view, unless it is a clear requirement across the board. Obviously, there are companies that want to participate in principle, but if they have to be transparent and accountable while other companies do not, it will be very difficult for them to compete. We are now looking at how to ensure that, both in the countries of origin of the companies and in the developing countries, we introduce mutually acceptable and binding legislation. That is what we are doing now.

Kenneth Clarke: When the Prime Minister was discussing Iraq with his fellow G8 leaders, he presumably recalled that they all supported the unanimous Security Council resolution 1441 saying that military force, if necessary, would be justified to disarm Saddam. Did he remind President Bush that the case for war against Iraq without a second resolution and in the face of the opposition of the majority of the Security Council was that those weapons posed such an imminent threat that an immediate military invasion was justified without giving any more time to Mr. Blix and his inspectors? Do I understand the Prime Minister's position today to be that he still believes that, and is telling the House that he thinks that that assertion was factually accurate, is factually accurate and will be proved factually accurate? If he is still standing by that, does he realise how serious it will be if it turns out that it was not true at all and the consequences that that will have for our confidence that the problems of Iran and Korea will be dealt with on a truly internationalist and legal basis?

Tony Blair: The right hon. and learned Gentleman and I agree on some things, but I am afraid that we disagree on this matter completely. First, let me point out to him that the basis on which we went to conflict was that in resolution 1441, Iraq was given a final chance to comply fully and unconditionally with the UN inspectors, and the conclusion that we drew six months later was that it was not doing so. The problem in the UN Security Council is that we could not get an agreement even to the fact that, if it carried on not complying fully and unconditionally with the UN inspectors, we could take action. That was obviously an unacceptable situation.
	That is the first point to make. The second is that I stand entirely by the dossier that we issued and the intelligence contained in it. I have also pointed out in the statement and on other occasions both at the Dispatch Box and elsewhere that, of course, Iraq undertook a sustained campaign of concealment of the weapons. The Iraq survey group is the group that is going in now and which will interview the scientists and experts and examine the sites, and it has the expertise, including former UN inspectors, to do so. When we get a proper and fully documented account of what it has found, we will present it to people, because it is right that they know the outcome. I suspect that both the right hon. and learned Gentleman and I would be sensible to suspend our judgment until that time, but I stand fully by what our intelligence agencies put out. I say to himhe will have some experience of thisthat I have dealt with those involved for six years and I have not only found them to be people of total professionalism and integrity, but found the quality of what they produce to be among the finest anywhere in the world.

Clare Short: In trying to heal the divisions in the world that have appeared with regard to the difference of view about how to handle the crisis in Iraq, did the Prime Minister apologise to President Chirac for misleading all of us about the position of France on the second resolution? I think that he told the House, and many of us, that France had said that it would veto any second resolution. It is now absolutely clear that President Chirac said on 10 March that the inspectors needed longer, but if they failed to disarm Iraq, the Security Council would have to mandate military action. Does that not mean that he misled us and should apologise to us as well?

Tony Blair: I am sorry, but again, we have a complete disagreement on this issue. First, the remarks that President Chirac made are now on the record and are history, and were about France saying no whatever the circumstances. Actually, there is an even more important point. What I said to my right hon. Friend and to the House was that France made it clear that it would not accept any resolution that involved the automatic use of force in the absence of compliance by Saddam or an ultimatum. That was what I said to her and to the House, and it is true. That is what he said. Therefore, we would have been back in a situation in which we would have had to come back to the Security Council once again and come to another resolution, but without any threat to use force if Saddam did not comply. In the end, that was the problem, and it is the problem as I explained it to the House, to her and to the country at the time.

Robert Jackson: We know that the spread of scientific knowledge will facilitate the spread of weapons of mass destruction. We know that serious terrorist threats exist. Does the Prime Minister agree that no amount of media barracking or political pot-stirring about Iraq will change either of those grim realities?

Tony Blair: I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman; he is absolutely right. That is why we were entirely justified in taking the action that we did.

Barbara Follett: On weapons of mass destruction, can my right hon. Friend say what will be the composition of the Iraq survey group, to whom it will report, and how it will relate to the United Nations?

Tony Blair: We have been putting together the Iraq survey group for a significant period since the end of the conflict. It will comprise roughly 1,300 to 1,400 people. In addition to weapons of mass destruction, it will consider evidence to do with mass graves and so forth. I think I am right in saying that there will be more than 100 British personnel. It is headed by an American, but the deputy is a British brigadier. It will include experts and scientists who have expertise in this area, as well as some former UN inspectors.
	As for the future involvement of the UN in the process, we accept, for obvious reasons, that there will have to be some independent verification at the end of itthat is what the world community will expect and it is what we should do. In resolution 1483, which we passed in the UN a short time ago, we agreed that we would have a discussion about how the UN could be put back into the process. The Foreign Secretary is continuing that discussion with his counterparts, and when it is concluded we will state its outcome. The process must be carried out only on a considered and deliberate basis over a period of time.
	It is no surprise to me that the issue is as difficult to deal with as it is proving to be, because I have to keep pointing out to people that our caseprecisely the case that I constantly made standing herewas that after Saddam realised that action was under way, an instruction went out to have a concerted campaign of concealment of these weapons. That is why there is no doubt at all that it will require a concerted effort to find out from the scientists, Iraqi experts and others exactly what happened to these facilities. The alternative thesis is that Saddam voluntarily decidedin an extraordinary act of perversity, when he knew that he was going to be invaded through refusing to comply with the UN inspectorsto get rid of the weapons anyway. I think that that is highly unlikely.

Peter Tapsell: Did the Prime Minister explain to the European leaders at Evian how he persuaded the House of Commons to vote for war on the basis of assumptions and claims about weapons of mass destruction that remain unproven? That is the essential parliamentary point that he is always seeking to blur. When he made his great speech to the House, was he deliberately seeking to mislead us or was it a blunder based on unsound intelligence reaching him? Can he not understand that an authoritative answer to that question can be given only by an independent, sovereign inquiry headed by a distinguished judge?

Tony Blair: I do not think that I ever persuaded the hon. Gentleman of the case for action in any event. What I find remarkable about him and others who talk like that about the issue of weapons of mass destruction is that Saddam and weapons of mass destruction is a well-documented historical fact. As I say, the Iraq survey group will examine exactly what has happened in the past few months.
	As for the idea that Saddam and weapons of mass destruction was some sort of whim or hunch of the security services, he was the person who used weapons of mass destruction against his own people: he gassed and killed thousands of them. He then engaged in a four, five or six-year programme of concealment. He said that he never had a biological weapons programme, and was shown to have one; he said that he never had a nuclear weapons programme, and was shown to have one; he said that he destroyed all the material back in the early 1990s, yet even Dr. Blix put out a 173-page document in March this year detailing exactly what was unaccounted for, including 10,000 litres of anthrax. So, with the greatest of respect, whatever happens now, let us please not have this ridiculous assertion that Saddam and weapons of mass destruction was an invention by the Americans, the British or our intelligence services.

Clive Soley: The agenda at the G8 summit that the Prime Minister described also affects the United Nations. Was there any discussion about the need to reform the United Nationsan organisation that was established in the rather different circumstances of 1945particularly with a view to dealing with states that are collapsing or collapsed and with psychopathic killers who take over nation states, brutalise their own populations, and destabilise regions? That is the challenge for the United Nations, and the G8 should have discussed it. If it did not, could it be on the agenda for the next occasion?

Tony Blair: My hon. Friend is right. In fact, that was part of the discussions we had. There is a clear acceptance that we need to take seriously our responsibilities for states that are dictatorial, abusive and repressive. One of the discussions we had on the last evening of the G8 was an interesting and frank discussion between leaders about what we do about states that are repressive and dictatorial. It is self-evidently the fact that we cannot take military action against everyone. What is happening in Zimbabwe is absolutely appalling, but I do not think that anyone is suggesting that we take military action there. [Hon. Members: Why not?] Perhaps some people are.
	What is increasingly clear is that unless we deal with these problems to do with freedom, human rights and democracy, the world is a less stable place. That is why I have noticed that since Saddam has gone in Iraq there is a real opportunity for change across the whole middle east. States are undertaking programmes of democratic reform that were not doing so before, the middle east peace process is under way, and at long last there is at least the prospect of getting a stable and democratic Iraq. That is why the points that my hon. Friend makes are absolutely right. The question of what we do about each and every one of these states is a different matter, but he is absolutely right that it is a serious issue upon which the United Nations and the international community should unite.

Alex Salmond: If the Prime Minister and the whole G8 are prepared to rely on the International Atomic Energy Agency and its protocols to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons to North Korea and Iran, why, even today, can he not bring himself to admit that that self-same agency's analysis demonstrated that the intelligence reports of African imports of uranium into Iraq were based on fabricated documents?

Tony Blair: I do not accept what the hon. Gentleman says. In relation to the IAEA, and indeed to any such international bodies, I would simply say that they cannot carry out their work unless they get the full support and compliance of the country concerned. That is why the G8 called on Iran to stop putting conditions on the work that the IAEA does.

Brian H Donohoe: In connection with weapons of mass destruction and the inquiry by the Intelligence and Security Committee that the Prime Minister has sanctioned, would he extend that to allow the Foreign Affairs Committee likewise to be given access to that evidence and those witnesses? That would meet the problem of the independence that might perhaps be lacking in relation to the Intelligence and Security Committee.

Tony Blair: We will proceed in the normal way in respect of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Intelligence and Security Committee and so on. I do not think there is any cause to change the normal rules that we apply to those Committees. I would simply point out, though, that it is not a question of my agreeing to inquiriesthe Intelligence and Security Committee has the right to oversee the way in which the intelligence services and security services work. That is what it is charged with, so it is the appropriate body to do so. Of course, the Foreign Affairs Committee is entirely entitled to carry out its inquiry, too.
	I hope that my hon. Friend realises that it would not be sensible to have two inquiries competing in exactly the same way. Having said that, there will be every opportunity for the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Intelligence and Security Committee to carry out their work, but it will be carried out in accordance with the normal conventions and traditions.

Nicholas Winterton: I welcome most warmly the Prime Minister's statement this afternoon; I accept that conflict in Iraq was necessary with or without weapons of mass destruction. Does he agree that the situation in Zimbabwe continues to deteriorate, and that that is affecting the security and economic position not only of that country but of the countries that surround it? Does he acknowledge that the only way of achieving a pluralist democracy and a sense of stability there will involve the removal of Mr. Mugabe? Without that, no progress will be made. What is the Prime Minister prepared to advocate should be done?

Tony Blair: First, what the hon. Gentleman says about Zimbabwe is absolutely right. This is a very serious situation indeed; that is clear. It is difficult to see how there can be any proper security and prosperity for people in Zimbabwe while the country continues to be run in the way it is. I entirely agree with all that. The question is, what do we do about it? In the conversations that I had with the African leaders at the G8 summit, I impressed upon themand I believe that they understand thisthat this is now affecting the whole region of southern Africa. In the end, they will be the people who are best placed to take this forward, if indeed they are committed to ensuring that the changes in Zimbabwe happen. There is a limit to what we can do, but within that limit, we will do everything that we possibly can. That is why we put the matter on the agenda at the G8 summit. We had a discussion, and we discussed it with the African leaders, too. In the end, however, I believe that the most powerful force for change in Zimbabwe will come from those surrounding countries.

Alice Mahon: On the discussions on the reconstruction of Iraq, may I draw the Prime Minister's attention to the report just published by Human Rights Watch, Basra: Crime and Insecurity under British Occupation? It concludes:
	Basra citizens remain fearful for their lives and properties . . . Basra's hospitals reported . . . five gunshot homicides daily, with another five to seven cases of injuries attributed to gunshots.
	It goes on to state that the massive stocks of unexploded ordnance are a real threat to the children in Basra. Was that breakdown in civil society discussed at the G8 summit, and what urgent proposals were made to stop Iraq sliding further and further into chaos?

Tony Blair: There are undoubtedly real security problems in Basra and elsewhere, and they are being tackled by the British troops and the authorities. The British troops are doing a fantastic job in improving the situation there. Of course it is going to be difficult, although I think it is sometimes possible to exaggerate the difficulties. In relation to Basra in particular, they have made huge steps forward. On the human rights front, my hon. Friend should not be in any doubt. This is not a case of a countryIraqwhose human rights record was superb and which has now been pushed into chaos by the British and American forces. The very human rights bodies that are now able to put out information about what is happening in Basra and elsewhere were the bodies that were kept out when literally hundreds of thousands of people were dying in Iraq as a result of Saddam's regime.

Jenny Tonge: I am delighted that the Prime Minister and the French President are chums again, but may I ask why that did not extend to the Prime Minister strongly supporting President Chirac's proposal for the European Union to suspend subsidies on farm exports to Africa, provided that the US did the same? Is the right hon. Gentleman just afraid of the other President across the pond?

Tony Blair: I thought I had said that I supported the French proposal on this issue. With the greatest of respect, however, we have to go further than either the US or France is going at the moment. We have to get rid of export subsidies in relation to agriculture altogether. The French proposal is an important step in that direction, but the hon. Lady should not be naive about it. We still need to go much further. That is also true in respect of America; it has the same obligations. Our position, therefore, is that we need to push further than both of those countries are doing.

Denzil Davies: My right hon. Friend has made much of the survey teams that will look for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but is he not concerned that the failure of the coalition to look for those weapons as a matter of the highest priority in the immediate aftermath of the war could well have provided the opportunity for many of the weaponsif they are thereto find their way into the hands of the various terrorist groups that are operating in and around the middle east?

Tony Blair: What the survey group will do is conduct a thorough investigation over a significant period of time, because these weapons have been concealed. After Saddam was got rid of, the first priority for the troops had to be the humanitarian situation and the reconstruction of the country. It is obviously a different situation from when Saddam was in charge of Iraq and had weapons of mass destructionnow that he has gone from Iraq, the weapons of mass destruction are concealed. I am not saying that this is not a crucial issueit is, which is why a team of 1,300 or 1,400 will go in to investigate it. But I do not think that it is wrong for the coalition to have said that our first priority at the end of the conflictwhich, after all, ended only six or seven weeks agohad to be reconstruction and the humanitarian position of the Iraqi people. Indeed, we would have been criticised roundly if we had not done so.

Patrick McLoughlin: During the run-up to the conflict in Iraq, I, like many of my colleagues, wrote to my constituents saying that if the American President and the British Prime Minister were telling us that there was a serious national danger, I was inclined to believe them. I am inclined to believe the Prime Minister, but he must realise that great questions have now been asked by members of his own Cabinet at the time he was telling us those things. He talked in his statement about transparency and increased accountability. Why then will the American Congress be holding its investigations into this matter in public, while the Committee that the Prime Minister wants to deal with the issue does so in private? Why has he become so averse to inquiries over the past six years? He seemed very happy to order inquiries into the actions of the last Conservative Government when he became Prime Minister, but I do not think that he has ordered one into the actions of his own Government.

Tony Blair: First, the position that we set out is the correct position. The reason why we took the action that we did was for the reasons stated. As I said earlier, I stand entirely by the dossier that was put out by the Government based on the intelligence that was authorised by the Joint Intelligence Committee. It was not made up by the Government; it was not overridden by the Government in any shape or form at all. In relation to what is happening in America, that is the normal way in which the Americans deal with congressional oversight of the Government there. I think that they would be quite surprised at how much prominence has been given to this issue by our media here, when in America it is simply seen as part of the normal way in which congressional hearings work. In relation to us, we have a particular way of dealing with these issues, and that involves the Intelligence and Security Committee. It was voted for by both sides of the House of Commons. It can look at all the Joint Intelligence Committee reports, it can interview the intelligence people concerned, and it can give a judgment. I have said that that judgment will be published for the House. Frankly, if it looks into those Joint Intelligence Committee reports and interviews the intelligence people, it will get to the truth about the 45 minutes, and so forth. The reason I am speaking so confidently about this from the Dispatch Box today is that I am quite sure of what it will find.

Stuart Bell: Since President Chirac has been mentioned today in relation to overseas trade and development, will the Prime Minister reiterate his welcome for the fact that the President has altered his position on the common agricultural policy in relation to export subsidies to Africa? Will he confirm again that an agreement on the so-called TRIPS question will be signedor that there is a commitment to a signaturebefore the Cancun conference in September? Does he agree that the opening up of world trade would be of the utmost interest to the developing worldthe third worldso that it might avail itself of the prosperity to which we have become accustomed?

Tony Blair: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are two really big outstanding issues for the WTO round in Cancun in September. One is the issue relating to pharmaceuticals and TRIPS; the other is to do with agriculture. We did not reach agreement at the G8, but I think that the atmosphericsif I can put it like thatare now much more positive towards reaching agreement. My hon. Friend is quite right; we should welcome the fact that France has taken a step forward on the issue of export subsidies, but we have to go further, and that then has to be echoed by other countries. There is, however, a better prospect of getting movement on this issue now than there has been for some time. That is vitally important, for the reason that my hon. Friend has just given; the developing world really needs this to work.

Alan Beith: The Prime Minister has referred to the question of what we do about other brutal regimes. Did he discuss with the international leaders the much-needed development of international principlesthe sort that we have tried to develop in regard to genocideto establish when it is right for states to intervene militarily to remove brutal regimes? After all, we intervened in Sierra Leone to restore an elected Government, the Americans intervened in Grenada, andmuch more controversiallythe Prime Minister now rests much of his case relating to Iraq on the removal of that ghastly regime.
	Is it not very difficult to see what separates those suffering under brutal regimes in Zimbabwe, Burma and North Korea from those suffering in the other countries that I have mentioned?

Tony Blair: The right hon. Gentleman raises a good point. It is at the heart of the dilemma. If the international community cannot reach agreement on an issue, in what circumstances should military action be authorised? We supported it in Iraq, in the end, because last November I felt that we had reached an effective agreement in the international community that Saddam was to be given a last chance, and that if he did not fully comply he was to be dealt with by military action. He did not fully comply.
	The history of UN resolutions speaking of a specific security threat in relation to Saddam was well known, but the right hon. Gentleman's point is valid, and there is no easy answer to it. We know of the appalling way in which the Burmese authorities have once again treated the opposition leader in Burma. These are difficult issues. I have been met by a chorus of, We should take military action in Zimbabwe, on the Opposition Benches, but if people actually think about that they will realise that it is quite a difficult thing to do.
	The point is that there is a need, at the very least, for the international community to come together and exert concerted pressure on those brutal and repressive regimes. History teaches us that if we do not deal with those regimes, in the end they become worse and worse, and finally their impact affects us all.

Nigel Beard: Did the G8 consider the worrying signs that the world economy might be moving towards deflation? In particular, did the group consider what concerted steps might be taken to counteract deflation if the threat proved more definite?

Tony Blair: There was a discussion about the world economy, obviously. Most people, in fact all people, indicated their belief that the world economy would pick up. I think that the two most necessary things are a sense of confidence in both the United States and the eurozonethere are at least some signs that that is happeningand, obviously, an improvement in the security and terrorism situation in the world as a whole. Part of the downturn in confidence has resulted from the security and terrorism threat.
	I would say that the consensus around the table was that the prospects of the world economy, and those of the American economy in particular, are rather better than they were.

Francis Maude: I supported the coalition action in Iraq without reservation. I believed what the Prime Minister said then, and I believe what he says now about intelligence information on weapons of mass destruction. I have little doubt that the inquiries being held by the various committees will find nothing other than that the Prime Minister dealt with that information properly. Does he understand, however, that there would not be such widespread scepticism about what he is saying today had not he and his colleagues for the past six years subordinated the instruments of the state to the narrow partisan interests of his Government?

Tony Blair: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the first part of what he said. As for the second part, I recall exactly the same allegations being made about a previous Government in the 1980s.

Crispin Blunt: By you!

Tony Blair: Probably by us, yes. That is absolutely true.
	There is often a very great gulf between what is actually the position and the exaggeration that is sometimes simply part of the business of politics.

Tom Harris: Given the positive signs emerging from both the Israeli and the Palestinian negotiating teams, we seem to see a real prospect of the establishment of a viable Palestinian state within the next three years. Does the Prime Minister agree, however, that a viable state alone is not enough? Such a state must also have the economic means to lift its people out of the grinding poverty that they have endured for more than 30 years. What economic aid will the United Kingdom Government give the nascent Palestinian state, and will it be reflected in aid from the other G8 countries?

Tony Blair: My hon. Friend makes an important point. We will do what we can in the United Kingdom, and also in the European Union. There is an important role for Europe, which often wishes to play a bigger part in the middle east peace process. We can help the Palestinians with their living standards, infrastructure, investment and development of the country. That will not work, however, unless we ensure that the peace and security situation is better stabilised. The truth is that if we did manage to secure greater security normalisation, the lifting of restrictions accompanying that would of itself have a huge and beneficial impact on the Palestinian people.

Martin Smyth: We welcome what the Prime Minister said about tackling AIDS and HIV, and look forward to a more positive outcome at the meeting of the World Trade Organisation in Mexico.
	In answer to a question, the Prime Minister spoke of people being naive. Does he not accept that some of the countries at the summit were naive in not recognising the possibility of evil regimes? Can we trust North Korea and Iran, which have been brutalising their own people in different ways, subsiding terrorism with Hezbollah, and threatening South Korea and Japan, to act on the guidance given by the G8?

Tony Blair: The hon. Gentleman's point is worthy of consideration. That is why the G8 agreed that we must call on both countries to co-operate with the international authorities in respect of their nuclear weapons programmes.
	The hon. Gentleman has put his finger on the central point. The weapons of mass destruction programmes of some countries allow them to divert enormous amounts of energy and resources, and to justify the repression of their people. That is why it is important to deal with them. The thought of either North Korea or Iran having a serious nuclear weapons capability is a thought that should trouble everyone.

Jeremy Corbyn: Can the Prime Minister explain why he and President Bush blocked the UN weapons inspectors' return to Iraq earlier this year, just before the bombardment started? Can he also explain why the current weapons inspection in Iraq is being undertaken not by the UN, but by an American and British operation? Does he not think that if people are to believe his assertion that weapons of mass destruction exist, there must be an independent inquiry in Iraq and an independent, open and public inquiry in this country? Many people simply do not believe that the cause of the war had anything to do with weapons of mass destruction. They think that it had everything to do with American military power and with handing out contracts to American companieswhich is now happening.

Tony Blair: Let me try to disentangle the various conspiracy theories from what my hon. Friend is actually saying.
	We did not continue weapons inspections because back in November we said that Saddam Hussein would have a last chance to co-operate fully and unconditionally. He did not do that. Indeed, we believeand our belief is based on what we know and the information that we have receivedthat instead he embarked on a systematic campaign of concealment. That is precisely what he did last time. It is not as if Saddam had no track record on weapons of mass destruction; he has always had a track record. We took the action for the reasons stated.
	I want to make this absolutely clear. We agreed on the basis of that resolution last year that Saddam should have a final chance to comply fully. If he had complied fully, there would have been no conflict; but he did not, and that is why there was a conflict.

Fishery Limits (United Kingdom) Amendment

Austin Mitchell: I beg to move,
	That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide that the Fishery Limits Act 1976 shall have effect regardless of the provisions of the European Communities Act 1972; that Part II of the Merchant Shipping Act 1988 shall have effect as though it had not been repealed by the Merchant Shipping (Registration etc) Act 1993; to confer upon the Secretary of State powers to license fishing vessels to fish within United Kingdom waters; to exclude vessels of specified nations or specified vessels from fishing United Kingdom waters; to negotiate common policies with other countries to preserve fish stocks; to invalidate any provisions of the Common Fisheries Policy of the European Community; and for connected purposes.
	This is a simple, sensible, even innocuous measure to provide that the European Communities Act 1972, which made European Union law superior to British law, shall not apply to the Fishery Limits Act 1976, by which Britain followed the worldwide trend that had been pioneered by Iceland, which placed fishery limits at 200 miles; in our case, the limits were at the median line. However, we were not able to benefit to the same extent as everyone else because European Union members were exempted from the Fishery Limits Act.
	The world took that step to ensure proper conservation, to build stocks and to develop domestic fishing industries. The national waters of most of the world's fishing nations experienced benefits. After a certain amount of trial and errorthere were errors in Canada with codnations placing 200-mile fishing limits were able to control foreign access, to rebuild or to replace stocks that were over-fished, to develop fishing sustainably and to build and to develop domestic fishing industries.
	For all those purposes, control of national waters is surely essential. It is only the nation state that has an interest in building and handing on a flourishing, sustainable fishing industry with sustainable stocks for future generations of its fishermen. Alone among the great fishing nations, Britain was not able to do that because, in 1972, the then Prime Minister, Sir Edward Heath, in his desperate rush to get into what was then called the common market, accepted a common fisheries policy of equal access to a common resource. That policy was of doubtful legality. It was cobbled together just before the start of negotiations with Britain and Norway, two major fishing nations, deliberately to get access to our stocks. The policy kept Norway out then and has kept Norway out since.
	We have attempted to live with the common fisheries policy for 30 years. We have attempted for 30 years to modify the policy, especially in the direction of greater national management powers. No one has attempted that more energetically than the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley), but we failed.
	The common fisheries policy itself has failed. Indeed, it was bound to fail because it is not a conservation policy. It is essentially a political policy to dole out shares of fish to European nations. Most of the fish70 per cent. at leastthat are being doled out are in British waters. Therefore, it has led inevitably to over-fishing; to illegalityany policy that means that fishermen are on the verge of bankruptcy drives them into illegality to survive; to deep damage to stocks, particularly cod, which in certain areas is near extinction, to a shrinking United Kingdom fleet; and to a damaging crisis where sacrifices have been required of this country. Industrial fishing, which has a massive by-catch of immature and edible species, goes on. Spanish vessels are admitted to our waters. They may be restricted in what they can catch but there are inevitably by-catchesfish we want to conserve.
	My Bill gives powers to Government to say, as the industry is saying, Enough is enough. They will decide when it is appropriate to use it. I do not conceal the fact that it will take will to use it, but it is about time that national will was exercised for the benefit of the fishing industry instead of fishing being continuously sacrificed to other purposes, whether it is the common agricultural policy, the rebate or whatever.
	The Bill gives the Government power to stop over-fishing and, when they care to invoke and to use it, to control our waters. It gives them power to come to agreement with other fishing nations such as Iceland for reciprocal swap arrangements and for exchange of catches: our catches in their waters, their catches in ours. It allows anything like that to happen on a reciprocal basis.
	The Bill gives the United Kingdom power to rebuild what have been described as the world's most perfectthey were certainly once among the world's bestfishing waters. It gives Her Majesty's Government power to keep out not only Spanish vessels but that long queue of other nations, the new entrants, many of which have big fishing fleets, which will inherit from membership the right of equal access to a common resourceagain, I emphasise, our resource.
	The Bill gives Ministers power to stop proposals that are currently in the draft European Union constitution to give the European Union exclusive competenceI think the only exclusive competence in the constitution; it is difficult to see why competence over fishing is in a constitutionover the marine products of the sea, whatever those may be, which could take that competence up to the beaches by eliminating the six and 12-mile limits. Just as important, the Bill gives Ministers a new weapon in those endless common fisheries policy negotiations, in which we always start at a disadvantage because we have the richest fishing grounds and everyone else wants sustained rights to those fishing grounds.
	The Under-Secretaryit is marvellous to see him here todayis a big man. He has a big mission and he has a big problem, which is to save Britain's fish. I hope that, when the House tumultuously passes my humble Bill into law, my Bill will give him the one thing he needs to add to those characteristics: the big stick that he deserves.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Austin Mitchell, David Burnside, John Cryer, Mr. Frank Field, Mr. Kelvin Hopkins, Lawrie Quinn, Mr. Alex Salmond, Sir Teddy Taylor, Ann Winterton and Mrs. Iris Robinson.

Fishery Limits (United Kingdom) Amendment

Mr. Austin Mitchell accordingly presented a Bill to provide that the Fishery Limits Act 1976 shall have effect regardless of the provisions of the European Communities Act 1972; that Part II of the Merchant Shipping Act 1988 shall have effect as though it had not been repealed by the Merchant Shipping (Registration etc) Act 1993; to confer upon the Secretary of State powers to license fishing vessels to fish within United Kingdom waters; to exclude vessels of specified nations or specified vessels from fishing United Kingdom waters; to negotiate common policies with other countries to preserve fish stocks; to invalidate any provisions of the Common Fisheries Policy of the European Community; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 11 July, and to be printed [Bill 117]. Opposition Day

[7th Allotted Day]

Iraq

Madam Deputy Speaker: I must inform the House that Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

Menzies Campbell: I beg to move,
	That this House recalls the Prime Minister's assertion that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction capable of being used at 45 minutes' notice; further recalls the Government's contention that these weapons posed an imminent danger to the United Kingdom and its forces; notes that to date no such weapons have been found; and calls for an independent inquiry into the handling of the intelligence received, its assessment and the decisions made by ministers based upon it.
	I begin by expressing a warm welcome to the Foreign Secretary. I think that it is the first time that we have seen him at a Liberal Democrat Opposition day. We hope that it will be the first of many such happy occasions.
	The Prime Minister has rightly said that there is no more solemn decision for him than to commit British forces to military action. The decision of 18 March this year in relation to Iraq was, possibly uniquely, shared with the House of Commons. It was no less solemn by being shared in that way.
	It was a decision that was taken against the background of unparalleled public anxiety, which brought more than 1 million people on to the streets of London. We know that a swift and professional victory has been won, and that United Kingdom forces played a distinguished role in it, although one cannot help observing that it would have been surprising if the most powerful military nation in the worldin coalition with others, including the United Kingdomhad been unable to defeat what had become virtually a third-world army, with ageing equipment, poor morale and inadequate leadership.

Mike Gapes: In view of the wording of the Liberal Democrat motion before us, can the right hon. and learned Gentleman tell us exactly when the Prime Minister said that there was an imminent threat from Saddam Hussein to the United Kingdom?

Menzies Campbell: I shall come to that point in due course, if I may.
	I know of no current principle of international law that legitimates military action because it is successful or produces a benevolent outcome. The Government repeatedly expressed their determinationone would have expected no lessto act in accordance with international law. It is no secret that there was a disputesome would say a continuing disputeas to whether military action in this particular case was legitimate.
	Since this is a matter of some controversy, it is right that I say what my own view is. Resolutions 678, 687 and 1441 undoubtedly authorised military action, but resolutions of the UN Security Council are not the only source of international law. Such military action has to be seen against the principles of international law. It would have been legitimate only if it were truly a last resort, when all other diplomatic and political alternatives had been exhausted, and, indeed, if the action proposed was proportionate, involving no more force than was necessary to achieve the objectives of the resolutions. I did not believe then, and I do not believe now, that those requirements were or have been satisfied. There was still mileageto put it colloquiallyin the inspection regime, and the proposed use of force was by no means proportionate, in that it was designed to bring an end to the regime of Saddam Hussein.
	If members of the United States Administration are to be believed, regime change was always their objective. Not so the United Kingdom Government. At a press conference on 25 Marcha week after the House took its historic decisionthe Prime Minister said:
	Our aim has not been regime change. Our aim has been the elimination of weapons of mass destruction.
	Indeed, he saidand implied as much again todaythat if Saddam Hussein had disarmed, both Saddam and his regime could have survived.
	So it is clear from that analysis and from what we recall, that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were at the very heart of the Government's position, as was the ability to use them within 45 minutes. The Government's case was that the United Kingdom and its forces in particular were at risk from the continued possession of those weapons. If my memory serves me right, Ministers said that, for example, British forces in Cyprus would be at risk if Scud missiles with a suitable range were armed with chemical or biological warheads.
	The Government also advanced the casesometimes, not alwaysof anticipatory self-defence under article 51 of the UN charter. That could be supported only by a belief that the threat was imminent, to the extent that an anticipatory right of self-defence arose.

Mike Gapes: I am interested in the exact wording that the right hon. and learned Gentleman is using. Is he saying that the Prime Minister, on behalf of the Government, said that there was an imminent threat, or that his interpretation of what was said is that there was an imminent threat?

Menzies Campbell: I am saying that it was a clear part of the case made by the Government that there was an imminent threat that weapons could be launched at 45 minutes' notice, and that British forces in Cyprus, for example, were at risk from such weapons. If that does not amount to an assertion that the use of such weapons was imminent, I cannot imagine what it would take to satisfy the hon. Gentleman in that regard.

Jack Straw: rose

Clare Short: rose

Menzies Campbell: I give way to the right hon. Lady.

Clare Short: The question of the imminent threat is very important. It is now clear that President Chirac had said that if the weapons inspectors failed to disarm Iraq, it would be necessary for the Security Council to approve military action. The only reason not to go through the UN, via the capacity of the Security Council, to secure agreement must have been that the matter was urgent and that there was an imminent threat; otherwise, we could have had unity in the international community and the Security Council.

Menzies Campbell: Indeed. As I recall, when this point was made on the last occasion on which Dr. Blix appeared before the Security Council, he said that it would not be a matter of years or a matter of weeks before he and his team could complete their inspections, but that it could be a matter of months. That view was rejected, and as the right hon. Lady says, that can only have been on the understanding that the threat was so acute that Dr. Blix should not be allowed the time that he thought appropriate to complete the inspections.

Barry Gardiner: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman give way?

Menzies Campbell: I will not, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.
	Much turned on the opinion of the learned Attorney-General, who ultimatelyand unusuallymade it known that he had expressed the view that military action was legal. It is axiomatic that on getting counsel's opinion, one should always be aware of the factual basis on which it was given. It is a reasonable inference that the Attorney-General proceeded on the factual basis then outlined by the Government. We are entitled to consider these questions. If the Attorney-General had known then that the immediate nature of the threat depended on the uncorroborated testimony of one witness, it is arguable that he might have changed his opinion. If he had known that Mr. Rumsfeld was likely to say that the weapons might have been destroyed before the war, it is arguable that he might have changed his opinion. If he had known that Mr. Wolfowitz would imply that weapons of mass destruction were not important in the decision to take military action, it is arguable that he would have changed his opinion. If he had known all three of those things, it is indisputable that he would have changed his opinion.
	When the case for continuing with the policy of containment and deterrence was being made, the Government's response was that it had failed. The imminence and acuteness of the threat was the Government's answer to the continuation of that policy.

Tam Dalyell: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman not also think that this adds up to the totally unsatisfactory position whereby an Attorney-General is in the other place and not in the House of Commons? Some of usthe right hon. and learned Gentleman would have been among themwould have put these very direct questions to him. There are certainly two possibilities, if not more, in terms of distinguished lawyers on the Labour Benches who could have been appointed Attorney-General.

Menzies Campbell: It is not for me to select those who should become Law Officers and sit on the Treasury Bench. The Law Officers are represented by the Solicitor-General, who is extremely able and competent, so there is no reason why these points could not have been made.

Calum MacDonald: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman say exactly where in the Attorney-General's opinion the word imminent is used or the concept of an imminent threat is mentioned? That is not the Attorney-General's opinion; that view is based entirely on resolution 1441.

Menzies Campbell: We never saw the Attorney-General's opinion; what we saw was an abstract of it. As I said earlier, if ever one is sent counsel's opinion, one should ensure that the factual statement on which that opinion is based is also supplied.
	I want to pick up on a point that the Prime Minister made with some robustness during his answers today. He said that there has been a concentration on humanitarian efforts that has inevitably had an effect on efforts to seek out any weapons of mass destruction.
	I am bound to say that the primary task of the coalition forces was to secure any such weaponsor, indeed, the facilities for their manufactureso as to prevent them from falling into the hands of the very terrorists who formed such an important part of the G8's conclusions during the past two or three days. I do not believe that the legitimate humanitarian objectives were in any way mutually inconsistent with the overwhelming and primary responsibility to lay hold of and secure any such weapons.
	On the question of the existence of such weapons, the right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) provided something of a searchlight into the position in his forensic and most dignified resignation speech of 17 March. He said:
	Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the termnamely a credible device capable of being delivered against a strategic city target.[Official Report, 17 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 727.]
	The right hon. Gentleman was suitably coy about the sources of information on which he based that conclusion, but I am willing to infer that during his time in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, he had access to information and material of the utmost sensitivity, and that he would not have expressed his conclusion in those terms unless he was satisfied that there was a sound factual basis for doing so.
	I shall now deal with the question of the form of the inquiry. The Prime Minister has made it clear that he expects an inquiry to be mounted by the Intelligence and Security Committee and that he will co-operate in every respect and make all materials available to it. I am not sure how far he went in respect of making all witnesses available, but it is certainly the case that any inquirywhether by the ISC or an independent inquirywill not be effective unless it can see everything and question everyone.

David Winnick: I understand the purpose of the motion before us on weapons of mass destruction. However, can the right hon. and learned Gentleman, unlike critics on the Government Benches, bring himself to welcome the fact that one of the most murderous and barbaric dictatorships has been destroyed, and that the people of Iraq are free from Saddam? I have not heard that sentiment expressed by critics today, and I wonder why.

Menzies Campbell: Let us be clear. I have said clearly in the House that Saddam Hussein was steeped in the blood of his own countrymen and women, but we cannot make assertions such as the hon. Gentleman's without taking some moral responsibilitycollectively, if not on a party-political basisfor what happened. It was after Halabja, where 5,000 people were killed, that the British Government of the day extended further credit facilities to the Saddam Hussein regime. It was after the end of the Iran-Iraq war that the British Government of the day continued to extend such credit facilities. There was a time when, because of his opposition to Iran, Saddam Hussein received the support of the United Kingdom and the United States. The hon. Member for Walsall, North (David Winnick) may like to distance himself in a party-political sense from what I said, but it is not something easily understood on the streets of Arab capitals in the middle east.
	The Intelligence and Security Committee is composed of people of independent judgment and senior Members of the House. I could not say otherwise, sitting in front of my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) in the presence of the right hon. Member for Dewsbury (Ann Taylor) who chairs the Committee, the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Mr. Mates) and the right hon. Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Joyce Quin) who was present a few moments ago. My comments are no reflection on their independence or their judgment. The ISC's recent report on Bali demonstrated its willingness to be critical of the Government. However, I do not believe that an inquiry by the ISC is the best form of inquiry for the specific circumstances of this case.
	I refer back to the depth and extent of public anxiety evidenced by the number of people who turned out on the streets of London and elsewhere to demonstrate and by the postbags of every Member of Parliament. Clearly, we need an investigation that is answerable not just to the Prime Minister or the House, but to the public who came on to the streets in such numbers to express their anxiety.
	Initially, I took the view that there might be scope for a special Select Committee of the House, but I have subsequently changed my view and I shall explain why. The Leader of the House made an important intervention this morning both in The Times newspaper and in an interview with Mr. John Humphrys. I have no doubt that that interview will become part of the learning process of young BBC interrogators and, perhaps, of budding Leaders of the House for a long time to come. I fear that anyone attending a BBC Christmas party is likely to hear that tape many times.
	To be serious, that intervention raised the stakes on any interpretation. A senior member of the Government says that he believes that someone in the intelligence services undermined the Government. Those of us with long political memories will recall that that intervention echoes some of the events of the Wilson era. It raises the stakes in a highly significant way, which cannot be denied. Secondly, I have become more persuaded that the substance of any inquiry must inevitably be what passed between the Prime Minister's office and the intelligence services, which requires a unique scrutiny. I do not believe that a Committee of the House or Parliament can provide such scrutiny.

Patrick Cormack: The right hon. and learned Gentleman says that the intervention of the Leader of the House upped the stakes, but he tabled the Liberal Democrat motion before that intervention was made.

Menzies Campbell: Indeed. I would have argued what I am arguing in my speech in any case. One cannot alter the fact of these events. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is a student of John Maynard Keynes, but it was he who aptly said, When the facts change, I change my opinion.

Andrew MacKinlay: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman lack ambition for the House and for parliamentary Select Committees? Should we not all be saying that those are the right forums for an inquiry, in preference to a Franks inquiry behind closed doors or a Scott inquiry that will take us to 200405 before it reports? The House of Commons is the right place and the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs should be buttressed in its campaign to prosecute this matter and gain access to security and intelligence documents.

Menzies Campbell: I hope that I lack no ambition for the House and I can deal with the hon. Gentleman's criticisms in what I am about to say. I have already said that for any inquiry to be effective, it must have access to everything and to everyoneat all levels of Government, politicians and officials alike. When national security is not involved, there is no reason why an inquiry should not sit in public.
	On the question of the time limit for production of a report, the right hon. Member for Livingston and myself formed an ever-lasting bond on the rain-spattered pavements outside the mews of Buckingham Palace, waiting to gain entry to the Scott inquiry, which went on for a considerable periodor, as some would argue, for too long. There is no reason why an inquiry of the sort that I seek could not be given a time limit within which to report. The inquiry should be headed by a judicial figure with experience of weighing evidence and attaching significance to it.

Jim Cunningham: We have argued in the past that Select Committees should be given greater investigatory powers. What therefore is the right hon. and learned Gentleman's difficulty with the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs investigating this matter?

Menzies Campbell: It must be obvious to the hon. Gentleman that the Foreign Affairs Committee has a certain level of security clearance, but it is not a level of clearance that is apt in the circumstances with which we are concerned. [Interruption.] I am not talking to the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay), but to the hon. Member for Coventry, South (Mr. Cunningham). I know that he wishes I was talking to him, but I am talking to his hon. Friend. I was saying that the particular level of clearance given to members of the Foreign Affairs Committee might not be appropriate. Whoever is charged with the responsibility to investigate must have the ability to see everything and to talk to everyone. I am not convinced that that will be allowed.
	I am a survivor of the Trade and Industry Committee's inquiry into the Iraqi supergun affair, and I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the record of those proceedings shows clear evidence of the fact that that Committee's efforts to get Ministers and officials to appear before it and tell it what they knewindeed, to get a Member of the House to appear before it and tell it what he knewwere thwarted time after time. I confess that my experience does not lead me to be overly confident in the notion that a Select Committee inquiry would be the best way to deal with the matter.
	The inquiry to be established will have several significant questions to consider. The Prime Minister used the word overriding on several occasions today, and he no doubt did so precisely and deliberately. The question that the inquiry must consider is whether Downing street sought changes to last September's dossier, as is now alleged, although such seeking may have fallen far short of overriding. The inquiry should consider who was responsible for the final contents and form of the so-called dodgy dossier. Who was responsible for the allegation that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium from Niger? That allegation was comprehensively destroyed by Dr. el-Baradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency in the course of the Security Council's proceedings, when he pointed out that the exchanges of correspondence appeared to be false. As later investigation proved, one item bore the name of a Minister who had not been in office for some seven or eight years.
	In the light of what the Leader of the House has said, the inquiry must also consider whether there is any evidence of efforts by one or more persons in the intelligence services to undermine the Government. That would be a grave constitutional outrage if it were true, and it is therefore worthy of investigation. The inquiry should also consider to what extent the Government relied on Iraqi sources who may have been motivated by an understandable desire to overthrow the regime, and whose objectivity may have suffered as a result. In the light of what the Minister of State, Ministry of Defence, frankly told the Today programme last week, the inquiry should also consider the extent to which our Government relied on uncorroborated information from a single source.
	I hope that the whole House will vote for the motion. I apprehend from the interventions from the leader of the Conservative party that we may be able to look to him and his colleagues for support. Those who supported the Government have a stronger reason for voting for the motion than those who did not, because the supporters did so on the basis of statements of fact, some of which are now subject to question. Had they known so at the time of the historic vote on 17 March 2003, it is reasonable to infer that more of them would have found themselves unable to support the Government. I do not wish to speculate how many would have changed their minds, but it is not unreasonable to infer that had the facts and information now before us been available then, some who were persuaded to support the Government would have been unable to do so.
	We owe it to ourselves to have a thorough investigation by an independent inquiry, butmuch more than thatwe also owe it to the whole country.

Jack Straw: I beg to move, To leave out from House to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
	believes that the Intelligence and Security Committee established by Parliament is the appropriate body to carry out any inquiry into intelligence relating to Iraq; and notes in relation to Iraq's disarmament obligations the terms of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1483.

Andrew MacKinlay: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Jack Straw: I know that my hon. Friend seeks to set records, but it is a record to be intervened on while moving an amendment. I give way.

Andrew MacKinlay: My right hon. Friend read out the amendmentunfortunately, I shall have to support it tonight, because I am subject to the Whipswhich states that the Intelligence and Security Committee was set up by Parliament. It is not a matter of semantics to say that that Committee was not set up by Parliament. It is appointed by the Prime Minister and is answerable to him. It is not a creature of Parliament. The Foreign Affairs Committee is the only appropriate body, because it was set up by Parliament. The ISC might have been set up under statute, but the Committee is constituted by the Prime Minister, and is fatally flawed for that reason.

Jack Straw: I shall deal with that issue immediately. The Committee was indeed established by Parliament and, for the avoidance of any doubt, I have in front of me a report of the Second Reading of the Bill that established it, from 22 February 1994. The Intelligence Services Act 1994, which contained provision for the establishment of the Committee, was approved, without Division, by all parties in the House. Although my hon. Friend would have been right to say that some of us, including myself, had some reservations at the time about whether that was the best mechanism for holding the intelligence and security agencies properly to accountthere was an argument about whether a Special Select Committee was appropriatenobody who has served on the Committee, or has had to give evidence to it, as I have regularly in each of the past six years, has anything but the highest regard for its independence, professionalism and integrity. Report after report from the Committee testifies to the fact that it is well capable of forensic examination of the issues and independence of judgment.
	As for the appointment of the Committee by the Prime Minister, I shall lift the veil on a debate that has been going on for some time. One of the argumentsI am sorry, I shall rephrase that, because we do not have arguments in the Government: one of the differences of emphasis that I have had with some of my colleagues is that I think that it would be better to bite the bullet and establish a Select Committee. We could make similar arrangements for the security clearance of its members and the special security of all the evidence.

Andrew MacKinlay: You were not cleared as president of the National Union of Students.

Jack Straw: With great respect, I was cleared, but I do not want to go into that issue because it would take too long. Given my past, I can tell the House that my clearance under the old positive vetting procedure was not just a matter of a tick in a box. I had at least three successive grillings by officers of the security services, but in the end I received a tick. Years later, when the fact that the security services held files on mewhich I already knewbecame public, I refused to abuse my position as Home Secretary to see the files.
	In practice, the membership list of the Intelligence and Security Committee is drawn up in the same way as the membership list of an ordinary Select Committee. It is drawn up by debate between the Whips across the Houses. The idea that somehow the Prime Minister can stop the publication of the judgments of the Committee is simply untrue.

Alan Beith: indicated assent.

Jack Straw: I am glad to see that the right hon. Gentleman agrees with that, because he is a distinguished member of the ISC. What actually happens is that every time the Committee reports, it does sounder statute approved by Parliamentto the Prime Minister. The purpose of that is to allow for redactions, or deletionsand it is always indicated where they occurin the report, to protect highly sensitive information. To my knowledge, no Prime Minister in this or any previous Administration has ever desired or sought to amend any judgment made by the ISC. Were any Prime Ministeror Foreign Secretary or Home Secretary, as those responsible for the day-to-day running of the agenciesto try to amend such a judgment, the Chairman and the members would be the first to tell the House about it, and in my opinion, it would be a matter for resignation. It would be preposterous to try to amend the Committee's judgment, and no one would try. I hope that that answers the point about the integrity of the Committee.

Brian H Donohoe: On that point, will my right hon. Friend give a cast-iron assurance that no amendments will be made to the report by the Prime Minister, or anyone else in 10 Downing street?

Jack Straw: May I explain to my hon. Friend that amendments are never made to the report? I have just gone through the forthcoming draft report and I was asked for my agreement on a number of what are called redactions. As it happens, I told my right hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury (Ann Taylor), the Chairman of the ISC, that I refused to agree one deletion, on the grounds that I could see no good reason for it. As a result, I think that that item is now going to surface. What my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary and I are asked to approve is, for example, that very sensitive source information or financial information be taken out. However, we never ever seek to amend the report, and still less to suppress its judgment. My hon. Friend asks for an undertaking that there will be no attempt to amend the report, apart from any deletions of the sort that I have described, and I give him that categorical and cast-iron undertaking.

Jenny Tonge: rose

Jack Straw: I turn now to the overall context in respect of Iraq. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister dealt briefly with that earlier, but only eight weeks have passed since Saddam Hussein's brutal regime fell. In that time, we and our coalition partners have set about the task of helping the people of Iraq to build a more secure, prosperous and democratic nation. Enormous challenges remain in what will be a long-term commitment, but we believe that the situation in the north and the south is slowly improving. However, as I told the House on 12 MayI am sorry to have to repeat it todaythe situation in Baghdad and the surrounding region remains unsatisfactory. The establishment of a secure environment in Baghdad, and the provision of services there, are a top priority for the coalition. That was one of the main items of discussion between my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and President Bush last week.
	When I made my last report to the House on 12 May, I informed hon. Members of the progress that we were seeking to make to obtain a Security Council resolution establishing the vital role for the UN to which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and President Bush had committed themselves at Hillsborough on 8 April. On the first day of our recent recess, United Nations Security Council resolution 1483 was passed. Copies have been placed in the Library, but I am pleased to tell the House that this resolution more than delivers on the Hillsborough undertaking.

Clare Short: Obviously, we all know that that is a Security Council resolution, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend will agree that it is a compromise, in that the UN is being given only a parallel role with the coalition, rather than the primary role in bringing an Iraqi interim authority into being. However, I read in the press that the American representative in Iraq has said that the idea of holding a conference to bring forward an Iraqi Government has been cancelled, and that a smaller group is to be selected for that purpose. What is the UN's role in that?

Jack Straw: I was about to come to those matters, and I shall deal directly with my right hon. Friend's second point. Of course, the resolution was indeed a compromise. That is an inevitable and inherentindeed, an admirablepart of the process by which 15 different member states of the Security Council come together to debate, negotiate andwe hopeagree Security Council resolutions.
	Paragraph 11 of resolution 1483 reaffirms that Iraq
	must meet its disarmament obligations,
	and also recalls Security Council resolutions 687, 1284 and 1441, the key disarmament resolutions passed since the Gulf war.
	Resolution 1483 was passed unanimously, after much negotiation and after Britain, the US and Spainthe countries that moved the resolutionhad first tabled the original draft. I always made it clearin private to my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short), and publiclythat the draft was a draft and that if we wanted the unanimous agreement that we got in the end there would have to be compromises.
	However, my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood, among others, has sometimes suggested that it is possible to secure votes by some kind of additional pressure. I think that bullying was the word that she used, but the experience of the past nine months shows clearly that members of the Security Council make up their own minds on the issues before them. That is simply a matter of fact. Sadly, they did not agree to the so-called second resolution in March. We tried very hard, but the Security Council decided not to agree to that resolution, and we did not put it to a vote. However, it did agree last November to resolution 1441again after a good process of negotiation and compromise, and it agreed to resolution 1483 on 22 May.
	I ask the House this question: would France, China, Russia and Germany have called just two weeks ago for Iraq to meet its disarmament obligations if they had believed that those obligations had already been met? Of course they would not. Yet the Security Councilwhich is made up of grown-up countries perfectly able to decline to vote in favour of a US-UK resolution when they wishrepeated at the beginning of operational paragraph 11 that Iraq must meet its disarmament obligations.
	I shall deal directly with the other point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood. It is true that Mr. Bremer has proposed that the Baghdad conference should be delayed and that, pro tem, there should be an arrangement of the kind that my right hon. Friend has described, to assist the coalition authority. We are in active discussion with the US about that, but we also believe that what the US and the coalition provisional authorityeffectively, the US and the UKare doing is fully consistent with resolution 1483.
	I have two other things to say on this matter. First, I shall write with more details to my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood, and I shall place that reply in the Library. Secondly, one of the good things achieved by the process of negotiation on resolution 1483 was a significantly strengthened role for what was originally to be a special co-ordinator from the UN. That post is now that of a special representative, who has powers with which I believe the Secretary-General is very happy. In turn, the Secretary-General has appointed Mr. de Mello, who I think is well known to my right hon. Friend; he is a man of the highest reputation and integrity in the international community. He has undertaken to report regularly to the Security Council. If he feels at any stage that what we are doing is unsatisfactory, he will make his own report to the Security Council.
	I should add that under resolution 1483, the US and the UKthe coalition provisional authorityare required to make very regular reports to the Security Council. I am absolutely with my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, LadywoodI am sure that the whole House isin wanting to ensure that the words used by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and President Bush about a vital role for the UN are translated into real action. I believe that they have been, in resolution 1483.

Jeremy Corbyn: rose

Roy Beggs: rose

Jack Straw: I shall give way first to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn).

Jeremy Corbyn: Will my right hon. Friend explain why the Iraqi assistance fund is under the control not of the UN, but of Britain and the US? The fund has access to all the Iraqi foreign reserves frozen during the Saddam regime. It is busy handing out contracts for reconstruction, mainly to American companies, and it also has access to all the oil revenues that are coming in. Is my right hon. Friend surprised that there is growing opposition in Iraq to the US presence there?

Jack Straw: I suggest that my hon. Friend read the terms of the resolution. It is true that operational paragraph 12 establishes the fund, to be held by the central bank of Iraq and subject to the directions of the coalition provisional authority, for the time being. However, the fund is to be audited by independent public accountants approved by an independent monitoring and advisory board. That board includes representatives of the UN Secretary-General, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and certain regional bodies. Moreover, the money can be used only for the benefit of the people of Iraq. That, too, will be audited.
	It is therefore simply wrong of my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North to suggest that there is any possibility that the funds could somehow be siphoned off for the benefit of the members of the coalition. The coalition has power over the funds because of its obligations as the occupying power.
	One of the things that I insisted should be included in the initial draft of the resolutionand there was some reticence about thiswas an acknowledgement that we were the occupying power, as defined under the fourth Geneva convention and the Hague regulations. That acknowledgement imposed very significant obligations, and it was not a role that the UN wanted at that stage, especially given the controversial history of the occupation.

Roy Beggs: I have no doubt that the concealed evidence will, in time, be exposed. However, intelligence gathering in Iraq remains up to date. The disabled special Olympics team there has been identified. We have had commitments in the House that resources will be available to enable that team to participate in the games. Can the Foreign Secretary give me an assurance

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman's intervention is going rather wide of the motion.

Jack Straw: I have discussed that matter with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence. There are difficulties about pursuing the hon. Gentleman's suggestion, but I will take it up again with my right hon. Friend, and I will write to the hon. Gentleman.

Jenny Tonge: Will the Foreign Secretary explain under which international law an occupying power can be responsible for humanitarian aid and reconstruction of the occupied country?

Jack Straw: The fourth Geneva convention and the protocol, and the Hague regulations. A good abstract exists of both those sets of international instruments, and I shall make a copy available to the hon. Lady.
	My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister set out in detail, both at Prime Minister's questions and in his statement about the G8 summit, the arrangements that the coalition forces are making to step up their efforts to investigate sites, documentation and individuals concerned with Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programmes. There is no need for me to repeat what he said.
	The motion focuses, as the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) said, on the claim that weapons of mass destruction were capable of being used at 45 minutes' notice. It further recalls the Government's contention that those weapons posed
	an imminent danger to the United Kingdom and its forces.
	It is not the main point of the debate, but I was struck by the fact that the right hon. and learned Gentleman did not use his customary forensic skills to choose words that the Government had actually used. We talked about a threat to international peace and security, as had the United Nations. So far as I am aware, however, we have never talked about the weapons posing an imminent danger to the territory of the United Kingdom or its forces. I was struck, too, by the fact that in the course of questioning, the right hon. and learned Gentleman was unable to come up with a single source for a central claim in his motion.

John Bercow: rose

Jack Straw: I will give way later, but I want to make some progress.
	Let me make it clear why Ministers and the Joint Intelligence Committee regarded the information in our dossier as reliable, including the claimfar more carefully worded in the dossier than in newspaper rewordings of itthat Saddam's military planning allowed for some of the weapons of mass destruction to be readied within 45 minutes of an order to use them. That seems to me to be an unremarkable claim, since most materiel can be made available within 45 minutes of an order to use it; indeed, the order to use it is often not given until it is known that the materiel is available for use.

Michael Portillo: When the Prime Minister made the decision to include the 45-minute point in the foreword, did any security official remonstrate with him to say that that point, reliant as it was on a single source of information, did not bear sufficient weight to be included over the Prime Minister's signature?

Jack Straw: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his question. Let me deal with the provenance of the dossier. The 45 days[Hon. Members: Forty-five minutes.] I am sorry.

Patrick McLoughlin: The truth is coming out now.

Jack Straw: The intelligence on 45 minutes came, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said, from an established and reliable source, not a defector, who has been reporting to us secretly for some years. The intelligence became available at the end of August. It was discussed by the Joint Intelligence Committee in the first week of September. It was included straight away in classified JIC documents. The fact that it had already been included in JIC assessments before its appearance in the public dossier puts in perspective the wilder accusations in the media.
	Let me deal with the point made by the right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Portillo)

John Bercow: rose

Crispin Blunt: rose

Jack Straw: No, I shall deal first with the point made by the right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea, and I will then give way to the hon. Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow).
	A dossier was prepared. It was in draft, and it was discussed in the normal way. Then it went back to the head of the JIC and his colleagues for final approval. I saw the draft; I cannot remember exactly what comments I made on it, but they will be among the evidence given to the Intelligence and Security Committee. A draft of the foreword was then prepared. That, too, was subject to discussion with and agreement from the head of the JIC to ensure, plainly, that what was in the foreword was entirely consistent with what was in the body of the document.

Michael Portillo: I am awfully sorry, but I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman has answered my point. Of course it is axiomatic that what was in the foreword was consistent with the body of the report. What I asked was whether, when the reference was moved from the body of the report to the foreword, to stand above the Prime Minister's signature and be given the extra emphasis of having the Prime Minister's signature below it, intelligence officers made any representation to the Prime Minister, or any other Minister, that, given the provenance of the information, it did not bear sufficient weight to stand above the Prime Minister's signature.

Jack Straw: I do not accept what the right hon. Gentleman is saying. If he has a copy[Hon. Members: Answer.] The right hon. Member for Kensington and Chelsea is saying that he does not believe that the point about 45 minutes deserved the prominence that the Prime Minister gave it in the report.

Michael Portillo: I am awfully sorry, but perhaps I am not speaking loudly enough. I am asking the Foreign Secretary a question. When the Prime Minister submitted a draft of the foreword, including the 45-minute point within it, did any intelligence officers remonstrate with the Prime Minister, or any other Minister, to say that they did not believe it should stand in the foreword because it was based on only a single source? If the answer is no, we can all move on.

Jack Straw: The answer is no, and we can all move on.

John Bercow: Given that the Prime Minister displayed such admirable statesmanship in the run-up to and conduct of the war against Saddam Hussein, and given that the people responsible for weapons detection are different from those responsible for national reconstruction in Iraq, why is it only now, as we learned at Prime Minister's Questions, that a new body is being established to intensify the search for weapons of mass destruction? In broad terms, within what time scale can we expect that work to be completed and reported?

Jack Straw: The establishment of the Iraq survey group was agreed a little while ago. In truth, after a conflict of this kind, eight weeks is a relatively short period. The immediate requirement was to establish security. That still has not been done. A body such as the Iraq survey group plainly cannot operate effectively until there is good security across the country. Having established security, the need alongside that is to meet the immediate and longer-term humanitarian needs of the people. I believe that that is being done as speedily as possible. I acknowledge the impatience that the hon. Gentleman is expressing. We are all impatient for further evidence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, even though I am entirely satisfied about the basis on which we made our decision on 18 March.

Kenneth Clarke: rose

Crispin Blunt: rose

Jack Straw: No, I am sorry. I must make some progress.

Robin Cook: May I return for a moment to the question of the 45-minute readiness of weapons of mass destruction? For me, the central question is not whether there was one source or two, or whether it was in the first or the second draft. The central point, as we can plainly see now that we are in Iraq, is that that statement was wrong. Has the Foreign Secretary noticed that General Conway, commander of the US Marine Corps in Iraq, has said, after inspecting every ammunition dump and having failed to find a single chemical shell, that we simply were wrong. If the US Marine Corps can say we were wrong, why cannot we?

Jack Straw: I simply do not accept what my right hon. Friend says. As he has raised that point, I can tell him that, when I initially took on my current job, one of the reasons that I became convinced of the strength of the case against Iraq, even before 11 September, was because of the number of times that I had heard him, when he held my high office, making statements and speeches about Iraq's holdings of weapons of mass destruction. I have in front of me an article that my right hon. Friend, then Foreign Secretary, wrote in The Daily Telegraph on 20 February 2001 under the headline Why it is in the interests of the Iraqi people to bomb Saddam.
	The article stated:
	UN measures remain in place because of Saddam's determination to retain and rebuild his weapons of mass destruction and threaten the region . . . We believe
	that is, my right hon. Friend
	that Saddam is still hiding these weapons in a range of locations in Iraq, and that Iraq is taking advantage of the absence of weapons inspectors to rebuild weapons of mass destruction . . . We must not be deceived. He still threatens his neighbours. Unchecked, Iraq could develop offensive chemical and biological capabilities, and develop a crude nuclear device in about five years.

Kenneth Clarke: rose

Crispin Blunt: rose

Jack Straw: I want to make some progress. The simple fact is

Robin Cook: My right hon. Friend really must give way on that point. Saddam was not allowed to go unchecked. We pursued a vigorous policy of containment and everything that we discovered when we went to Iraq showed that that policy of containment worked. What my right hon. Friend read out was interesting and, if I may say so, very well written, but it does not answer the question that I put to him. Would he please condescend to address his mind to that question? The central issue is that we have not found any weapons ready for use within 45 minutes. That information was wrong, wherever it came from.

Jack Straw: I do not accept that, because we have not yet been able to find physical evidence of the possession of such weapons, those weapons therefore did not exist. That flies in the face of all the other evidence. My right hon. Friend is too skilled to suggest that Saddam did not have weapons of mass destruction; that he did not use them against his own people in Halabja, as well as against the Iranians; that he did not have a biological weapons programme that he concealed from the world for four years despite the best efforts of inspectors, as my right hon. Friend so eloquently often spelt out; or that biological weapons capability became known not as a result of any work of the inspectors but because of defections. My right hon. Friend seems to brush aside any suggestion that the effective dismissal of the inspectors at the end of 1998, about which he protested strongly, could have had anything to do with the fact that Saddam was still trying to hide his weapons programmes, yet that was the whole basis of his article in The Daily Telegraph at the beginning of 2001.
	It is certainly the case that the argument between my right hon. Friend and me, and the reason why he resigned from the Government, was about whether the containment policy was working and inspections would continue to work or whether, on 18 March, it was appropriate to take military action. Everybody knows that. However, it was understood on both sides of the House, with very few exceptions, that Saddam Hussein needed to be disarmed. That was exactly the assertion made on 16 March by the leader of the Liberal Democrats in a speech to the spring conference of his party at Torquay.

Clare Short: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Jack Straw: I will give way in a second.
	In that speech, the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West (Mr. Kennedy) said that Saddam had to be disarmed.

Kenneth Clarke: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Jack Straw: I will in a second, but I want to make some progress.
	The motion before the House implies that the intelligence dossier, with the point about the 45 minutes, was a key factor in the decision to go to war. It was not. The dossier was published on 24 September. Six months passed before the House was invited to agree to the United Kingdom's participation in military action, and did so. In that period, as the House and the country know, we moved heaven and earth to avoid military action, to have resolution 1441 passed and to get the inspectors in.
	The right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife failed properly to answer a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Western Isles (Mr. MacDonald). The right hon. and learned Gentleman was parodying and traducing the legal basis for the military action that we decided to take on 18 March. The basis for that action was not an intelligence dossier that had been put before the House six months before; it was to do with Saddam Hussein's repeated defiance of the UN over 12 years. It was not that we had said that Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi regime posed a threat to international peace and security, but that every member of the Security Council had said that Saddam Hussein posed such a threat. Because he posed that threat, the international community had passed 1441, giving inspectors upgraded powers. Week after week after week, it was palpable from the reports in the Security Council and from the conduct of Saddam, going back over 11 years and after 8 November, when 1441 was passed, that he was not willing to comply immediately and completely, as required by 1441, with the terms of that resolution and that, therefore, the clear warning given to Saddam by operational paragraph 13, of serious consequences if he were to become in further material breach, should apply. That was the issue before the House. That was the issue before the Attorney-General and it was on that basis that he authorised and approved military action subject to the approval of the House, and on that basis that we went to war.
	It is nonsense to suggest that the issue before the House on 18 March was whether a particular phrase in the dossier happened to be accurate. It was accurateexactly in the terms used. However, I have been unable to find any speeches made on 17 or 18 March that even mention that 45-minute intelligence reference. Not one person mentioned it, so for the Liberal Democrats, having made their judgments for their own good reasons, to imply that the whole basis for our decision on 18 March to take military action was the 45 minutes is utter and complete nonsense.

Charles Kennedy: If we go back to 24 September, when the Prime Minister was speaking in the House, he said that Saddam's
	weapons of mass destruction programme is active,
	The House should note that word activedetailed and growing. Referring to the recently published report, the Prime Minister said:
	It concludes that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them, that he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes.[Official Report, 24 September 2002; Vol. 390, c. 3.]
	If that was not a direct causal link being implanted in the mind of the House, at that point, I do not know what is.

Jack Straw: That was indeed the belief not only of the Prime Minister and the House but also of the international community. France, Russia, China and other members of the Security Council, including Syria, were perfectly capable of making their judgments. They came to the judgment that Iraq posed a threat to international peace and security. I come back to this point: it is impossible to explain Saddam's behaviour unless he had weapons of mass destruction.
	Dr. Blix is just about to publish a further report; there is a reference to it in the Financial Times today. The chief weapons inspector said that Baghdad had supplied his team with increasingly detailed information but that:
	even at the end, Iraq failed to allay suspicions that it had something to hide,
	and its
	trend of withholding pertinent information
	meant that the suspicions mounted and mounted.
	That was true for Dr. Blix and it was also true for the Security Council. Those Members, especially my right hon. Friend the Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook), who had doubts about the military action and about whether Saddam had a capability should read the reports of the weapons inspectors. They should read the last report of UNSCOM. I have put those reports before the House and everyone can read them, including the 173 pages of the final report. It is impossible to read those reports and to set them against the evidence of Saddam's behaviour without coming to the conclusion that, in Dr. Blix's words, there was a strong presumption for the holding of those weapons.

Kenneth Clarke: With the greatest respect, the Foreign Secretary is doing what the Prime Minister and the Leader of the House have been doing for the last two days: answering different questions from the ones that are being put to him. The Governments of France, Germany and China and the vast majority of the Government's critics in this House never denied Saddam Hussein's history of weapons of mass destruction. They never denied the need to disarm him. They never denied that it might eventually prove necessary to use military force to disarm him. That was never an issue at any time. On 18 March, the Government came to this place, saying, The case is for war now, and critics said that more time should be given for inspection and containment to see whether that route might be successful. Does the Foreign Secretary think that if he had come here on 18 March and said, We do not actually know whether Saddam has any weapons of this kind ready for immediate deployment; we are not sure whether we shall ever find any; and we are going to set up a whole new inspection system of our own to start looking for them eight weeks after the war is over, he would have got the House to give authority for the invasion that took place?

Jack Straw: That was the speech that the right hon. and learned Gentleman wished to make. The speech that I made was a different one, and the speech I would make now, knowing what I now know, would have been the same speech as I made on 18 March. What the House was invited to agree was a resolution that we recognised that
	Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and long range missiles, and its continuing non-compliance with Security Council resolutions
	a direct quotation from Security Council Resolution 1441posed a
	threat to international peace and security.[Official Report, 18 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 760.]
	We noted that in 130 days since resolution 1441 was adopted, Iraq had not co-operated actively, unconditionally and immediately with the weapons inspectors and had rejected the final opportunity to comply and was in further material breach of its obligations. We said that, given that, we decided to approve military action. That was the basis on which we came to that decision.

Crispin Blunt: rose

Jack Straw: No, I will not give way. I must make progress.
	I am glad that the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) made that concession, because one could be forgiven today for thinking that there are many people who opposed the war on one basis two months agothat they thought more time should be given to the inspectors, and are now saying that they opposed it on a different basis, namely that Saddam did not have any weapons of mass destruction or did not pose a threat to international peace and security after all.[Interruption.]

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order.

Jack Straw: People should be absolutely clear about this. The whole issue and argument was whether it was appropriate to take military action at that stage or whether it would have been better to allow Saddam more time. I had come to the view, reluctantly, that we should support military action. I notice, by the way, since there have been some questions about the position of the French people, that Mrs. Therese Delpeche, who is the French UNMOVIC commissioner, appointed by the agreement of the French Government, said that having pondered the documents produced by Hans Blix's team on the unresolved issuesin particular, the 173-page report put before the Security Council on 7 Marchshe had come to the conclusion that an ultimatum with a 17 March deadline was
	the only possible course of action now.
	Thus it was not only people in the United Kingdom or the United States who were supporting the position that we were proposing and that I put before the Security Council; it was people including the French commissioner of UNMOVIC, with all her experience. Her patience, too, had run out.

David Winnick: rose

Llew Smith: rose

Jack Straw: Let me respond to the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife and then I will give way. At the beginning of my remarks, which I shall conclude shortly, I dealt with the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) as to why I felt that the ISC was the appropriate body to undertake this inquiry. There cannot be any question about the independence, integrity or skill of the ISC, nor indeed any real objection

Jenny Tonge: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Jack Straw: No. Nor can there be any real objection to the fact that the Committee would have to meet in secret. In a debate in 1998, my right hon. Friend the Member for Livingston spelled out eloquently, as he will recall, why it was necessary for the ISC to meet in secret, and the fact that it has to meet in secret, as he said on that occasion, makes its examination, particularly of Ministers, all the more testing.

Llew Smith: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

David Winnick: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Jack Straw: In one second.

Andrew MacKinlay: Will my right hon. Friend co-operate with the Foreign Affairs Committee inquiry?

Jack Straw: The truth is that any other inquiry, whether a judicial inquiry or even a congressional inquiry, would have to hold a large part of its proceedings in private. That is the reality. Alongside the narrow inquiry of the ISC, I also welcome the Foreign Affairs Committee's inquiry, and that will hold its proceedings mainly in public.
	However, I say to the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife, as a member too of a fine and learned profession, although not as skilled or experienced as he, that we sometimes make a mistake in investing quite the faith that we do in appointing a judicial figure to chair an inquiry of this kind. I have been responsible for establishing some judicial inquiries. I think of one that was satisfactory and did the job pretty quickly: the Lawrence committee inquiry. However, others often take a very long time. Because of the Salmon ruleswitnesses, lawyers and so onlarge amounts of money can disappear. The Bloody Sunday inquiry is now costing scores and scores of millions of pounds

William Cash: You set it up.

Jack Straw: Yes, we did. I have been partly responsible for establishing such inquiries, so I can say with some confidence that I do not believe they are necessarily a satisfactory basis on which to proceed.

David Winnick: Instead of the apologies that are expected today, would it not be more relevant if the international community apologised for the fact that it allowed Saddam and his thugs to rule and murder for years without taking any action until very recently? Is not something very wrong indeed with democracies if they could allow Saddam to murder thousands of people over the years?

Jack Straw: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend on that point.

Menzies Campbell: I confess that I do not remember the Foreign Secretary objecting to the form of the Scott inquiry when the right hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook) was making such coruscating speeches in the House of Commons against the Government of the day.
	The advantage of a judicial inquiry is that it brings total impartiality and a confidence in the public that political influence will not be brought to bear. That is why it seems, in the particular circumstances of this case, when 1 million people came out on the streets of London, that such an inquiry should be instituted.

Jack Straw: I simply do not accept what the right hon. and learned Gentleman is saying. There are on the ISC representatives of his party, representatives of the Conservative party and representatives from the other placeas well as very independent-minded Labour Members. The idea that those senior Members of the House will be suborned, subject to influence, is absolutely wrong. The right hon. and learned Gentleman did not say such things when I asked for acceptance of the case for the ISC to look into the Bali intelligence. Its report, which criticised the Government quite roundly, was widely acknowledged as being entirely independent.

Llew Smith: Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Jack Straw: In the time available I will not accept any more interventions, but I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends this question. The Government believe that the decision that we took in March was entirely justified, and I have spelled out the reasons why. The reasons why we took that decision are not the reasons now being suggested. People need to look at the record. But I ask those supporting this resolution and our critics whether they seriously believe that when Saddam Hussein chose confrontation rather than co-operation, he possessed no weapons of mass destruction, following our decision on 18 March? Do they seriously argue that Saddam had disposed of all his poisons and toxins and missiles, and then deliberately chose not to prove their destruction but to go down a path that led to his downfall? Is that the proposition? If it is, people need to say that.
	Even if we make the most extreme allowances for the warped mentality of a murderous dictator, how can we possibly believe that he cheated and deceived the international community year after year, until we had no option but military action, and yet that he possessed no weapons of mass destruction?
	The set of propositions that lies behind the charges against the Government is frankly fanciful. Is it not more likely that Saddam, knowing that the game was up and realising that we meant what we said, went to extraordinary lengths to dismantle, conceal and disperse the weapons and any evidence of their existence? We warned about exactly that in the dossier on 24 September. Saddam had spent years perfecting the art of concealment and carried that out so completely that it will take us some time to search hundreds of sites, interview thousands of scientists and locate and evaluate what remains of the documentary and physical evidence.
	I have made it clear that the ISC is composed of senior Members of all parties from both Houses. The Committee's report will be subject to its independent judgment and subject to debate in both Houses. There is no basis whatever for the Liberal Democrat motion. On the wider issue, I am wholly satisfied that the decision that the House took on 18 March, with a majority of 263, was correct and justified and that it remains as correct and justified today. I urge hon. Members to support the amendment and reject the motion.

Michael Ancram: This is an important debate. I listened with interest to the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) and to my surprise, and occasional alarm, I agreed with him on several of the matters that he raised. However, I was surprised by some of his remarks. He seemed to question the legality of the action that was taken in Iraq but I seem to recall that in the debate on 24 September 2002 to which the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West (Mr. Kennedy) referred, the right hon. and learned Gentleman said that a resolutionthe debate was held before resolution 1441 was passedwas not legally required before taking military action, although he believed that it was politically essential. At that time, he seemed to think that action even without resolution 1441 would have been all right.

Menzies Campbell: rose

Michael Ancram: May I make my second point and then the right hon. and learned Gentleman can deal with them both together?
	The right hon. and learned Gentlemen also cast doubt on the existence of weapons of mass destruction, yet I recall that on Breakfast with Frost last August, he said:
	it is a valid assumption that
	Saddam
	has continued with the biological and chemical weapons programme and I think it's also a reasonable assumption that he's trying for a nuclear capability.
	That was a slightly different tune to the one that he is singing today, but the popular wind was probably blowing in a different direction then.

Menzies Campbell: It just so happens that I brought a copy of Hansard with me. On 24 September 2002, I said:
	It may well be true that, legally, no new Security Council resolutions are required for the resumption of inspections. It may well be true that, legally, no new resolution is required for the use of force to implement resolution 687. Indeed, the existence of that authority was the only possible legal foundation for the actions taken in December 1998. However, I have no doubt that, from a political and a diplomatic point of view, a new United Nations resolution is essential.[Official Report, 24 September 2002; Vol. 390, c. 43-44.]
	If the right hon. Gentleman had listened to the analysis that I gave a moment or two ago, he would know that I said that any military action must be a last resort. United Nations Security Council resolutions are not the only fountain of international law and action taken must be proportionate. It did not seem to me that regime change was proportionate action.

Michael Ancram: I think that I can rely on the right hon. and learned Gentleman's words from last year. As we said when we practised together in the Scottish courts, I rest my case.
	I also listened with particular care to the Foreign Secretary. As he and hon. Members know, we supported the Government's action on Iraq and their reasons for it. We believe that the Prime Minister and Government acted in the national interest and we backed them. We do not resile from that position in any way, nor do we modify our view that the campaign in Iraq was well conducted and effective. I must say that we are less happy with the Government's failure to prepare properly for the peace and we shall have to return to that vital issue on another occasion.
	Our main concern stems from allegations about the Government's handling of intelligence material and evidence on the existence of weapons of mass destruction that proliferated last week while the House was in recess and we were unable to raise the matter. The intensity and nature of the allegations was designed to undermine the credibility not only of the Government, but of our intelligence services. Allowing such allegations to go unanswered could be nothing other than damaging to our national interest. They need to be answered not only comprehensively and fully, but urgently. It is not enough to dismiss them as absurd, which the Prime Minister seemed to do in certain press conferences last week. The allegations were detailed and the response to them also needed to be detailed.
	The Government constantly claimed that they had answers to all the questions and we hoped that the Prime Minister would come to the House and clear the air, thereby ending the damage that the doubts and suspicions created by the allegations were causing. That is why a letter that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition sent to the Prime Minister yesterday set out five key questions and why I listened to the Prime Minister today with particular interest. He gave us answers but they did not answer the questions that we raised and neither were they full or comprehensive. They did not dispel the doubts and suspicions, and I regret that the right hon. Gentleman did not take the opportunity to lay the matters firmly and conclusively to rest today. I therefore listened especially carefully to the long speech made by the Foreign Secretary. He dealt with the contents of various documents in detail, as he always does, but I do not believe that he gave satisfactory answers to the five key questions that we posed yesterday.
	Let me remind the Foreign Secretary and hon. Members of the questions. First, we still need to hear the truth behind the allegations that the dossier's original conclusion was deleted and a new preamble, reportedly written by the Prime Minister, was inserted. I am sure that the Foreign Secretary read the report in The Sunday Times on Sunday suggesting:
	after extensive consultation between . . . the JIC chairman
	and others in Downing street, various changes were made. The article also says that in a memo to Alastair Campbell, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee said that the foreword, written by the Prime Minister,
	had been incorporated within the overall document 'but the conclusion had been dropped'.
	In order to try to establish the precise nature of the original JIC report, we have called for the document, including the conclusion, to be published so that we would know whether there was any real truth behind the allegations in the article. We have received no satisfaction so far.
	Secondly, we have not been satisfied on the question of the 45 minutes. It is all very well to sayI do not disbelieve itthat the piece of intelligence was vetted and passed by the JIC and included in the report. However, the suggestion that the information was not significant flies in the face of the evidence. The information appears three times in the report: in the preamble, the executive summary and the body of the report. As the leader of the Liberal Democrats pointed out, the Prime Minister referred to it in his speech at the time. If the Prime Minister had not regarded the information as highly significant, it would not have been treated in such a high-profile way. Was the intelligence single-sourced or, as several reports yesterday suggested, was it double-sourcedor corroborated, as we say in Scotland? When significant intelligence information is used, how often is single-sourced intelligence accepted as opposed to corroborated intelligence? My right hon. Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Mr. Portillo) asked a question in which I think there was a barbed hook. I heard the Foreign Secretary's reply but we should be told whether single-sourced or double-sourced intelligence is usually used on such occasions.

Tam Dalyell: rose

Calum MacDonald: rose

Michael Ancram: I shall give way to the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) but I shall not give way after that because the three Front-Bench speeches have taken up quite a lot of the time that we have for the debate.

Tam Dalyell: Had there been weapons of mass destruction with a 45-minute capability, someone in Iraq would have come forward after the war to ingratiate themselves or to get money by giving us all the details. Perhaps in tonight's Adjournment debate on the detention of Tariq Aziz, the question can be addressed as to why one of the many who are now in the hands of the coalition has not corroborated the information that the House wants.

Michael Ancram: The hon. Gentleman and I approach the issue from a different angle. I believe that the Prime Minister accepted that intelligence information as genuine and that is why he spoke about it in the House. I am trying to clear the air by getting the Government to say why the information was regarded as so important that it was mentioned so often and why a single-sourced piece of information was used in that way. I see Government Front-Bench spokesmen shaking their heads, but until they deal with those questions the suspicions and doubts will continue, and it will be because of their reactions.
	Thirdly, we asked for a categorical assurance that there was no disagreement between Downing street and the intelligence services on the handling of intelligence information. A number of allegations have been made about that which go to the heart of the relationship between our intelligence services and the Government. In the light of this morning's developments, the question is more urgent and relevant. We need clear and categorical reassurances. We have not received them.
	Fourthly, Secretary Rumsfeld said last weekI have taken some trouble to establish precisely what it is that he saidthat it is possible that at the time we invaded Iraq we were not sure whether Saddam had biological and chemical weapons and was prepared to use them. Secretary Rumsfeld also said:
	it is possible that the Saddam regime decided that they would destroy them prior to the conflict.
	We need to know whether the Government agree with that assessment because it was made by a very senior member of the American Administration. If they do, we need to know how that squares with the Government's reiterated assertions, which I do not disbelieve, that weapons of mass destruction exist and will be found. Again, on that we have not received a satisfactory answer.
	Lastly, the Prime Minister told us on television on Sunday that there was new information to back up his previous statements about weapons of mass destruction which had not yet been published. In the light of the allegations now being made, not least by the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife, we need to know what that information is. If it confirms the Prime Minister's position, surely this is the moment when it should be published. In the light of current speculation, it should be published immediately.
	In St. Petersburg, the Prime Minister said:
	What we are going to do is assemble that evidence and present it properly to people.
	Surely it cannot take long to assemble evidence that is, according to the Prime Minister, already available and is now urgent. Again, we have received no satisfactory response to that request. We are therefore left with the situation in which, after Prime Minister's questions, a Prime Ministerial statement and a long speech from the Foreign Secretary, the doubts and the suspicions remain. The air has not been cleared and the damage continues.
	There is also another element. In an extraordinary outburst, the Leader of the House today launched an attack on growing rogue elements in the intelligence services.

Mike Gapes: He is right.

Michael Ancram: The Leader of the House made the most serious accusations against those elements. He was not able to name them. There is no indication that disciplinary action is being taken against them. In short, in his ill-considered and ill-advised outburst, he has done more to undermine confidence in our intelligence services than all the allegations to which I have previously referred. So serious is his attack that it cannot possibly just be allowed to rest. He has single-handedly made the case for an inquiry. We had hoped that clear answers might have pre-empted that, but they were not forthcoming. The serious charges levelled by a very senior member of the Government at the intelligence services compounds that situation. We now believe that an inquiry is necessary.
	We have considered the various forms that such an inquiry might take. It will have to be independent and open if it is to dispel suspicions and doubts not just in the House but among members of the public. Although we have the greatest respect for the Intelligence and Security Committee and welcome the inquiry that it will undertake, it does not fit those two criteria simply because of the way in which it is set up and the way in which it takes evidence.

Patrick Cormack: I am disturbed by my right hon. Friend's comments. He undermines the integrity of Parliament. There is no reason why the ISC should not conduct a rigorous, honest and open inquiry and report when it has done so.

Michael Ancram: I am not suggesting that it should not. In fact, I told the House that I welcome the fact that it is undertaking the inquiry. What I am saying is that it cannot by definition be called an open inquiry because it hears its evidence in private. To dispel the doubts on this occasion, the inquiry needs to be open.

Jack Straw: What exactly does the right hon. Gentleman mean by an open inquiry? Surely he is not seriously suggesting that all the evidence for his model of inquiry should be taken in public in the open.

Michael Ancram: The point about the ISC is that none of the evidence will be taken in public. I shall deal with how that could be done in a moment.
	We also respect and welcome the decision of the Foreign Affairs Committee to conduct a similar inquiry. It is right that Parliament, through that Committee, is able to have such an inquiry, but I do not believe that it can satisfy the criterion of independence which I believe public opinion now requires, especially in the light of the outburst from the Leader of the House this morning.
	If further damage is to be mitigated, the inquiry must be certain and clear. Our proposal is for a resolution in both Houses of Parliament under the Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act 1921. That is the most powerful form of inquiry and is appropriate for an issue of this gravity. The tribunal would be chaired by a senior judge with judicial powers to force witnesses to attend on oath and require the production of documents. It would be a contempt of court to refuse any of those requirements.
	Under the Act, the tribunal is not allowed to refuse the public, including the press, to be present at any proceedings unless in the sole opinion of the tribunal it decides that it is in the public interest to refuse public access, probably because the subject matter is sensitive. In that case, the nature of the evidence would be to do with national security. On those specific points, the tribunal might decide to exclude the public for the time when those particular issues are considered.
	The problem is not one of security, but of the Government's handling of security information. I was amazed by the Foreign Secretary's reaction to the idea of judge-led inquiries. I hope that in the privacy of his room tonight he will blush when he recalls the words that he used. It is interesting that all those inquiries into our conduct when we were in government that were set up by this Government were judge led. There is no problem with judge-led inquiries that deal with the previous Government, but if they are into this Government they do not want them.
	The allegations are not about the justification for action in Iraq; nor are they about the conduct of that action. Those were clear and evident and are not affected by the allegations with which we are dealing today. The allegations are concerned with the way in which the Government handled intelligence material and whether, in doing so, they were always totally open and honest with the House. That is what an inquiry must establish, as well as dealing with the serious assertions made by the Leader of the House this morning.
	Conservative Members are not in the habit of supporting Liberal Democrat motions, not least because they are rarely sufficiently clear to support. This motion does, however, call for
	an independent inquiry into the handling of the intelligence received.
	That principle accords with the type of inquiry that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition called for today. We will therefore support the motion in the Division Lobby. The Government had the chance to clear the air. They fumbled it. They now must live with the consequences.

Several hon. Members: rose

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind hon. Members that Mr. Speaker has imposed a 10-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches.

Clare Short: The conclusions that I have reached about the way in which the Prime Minister misled us in order to rush to war in Iraq are serious indeed. I am well aware of that. I wish that I had not reached those conclusions, but I fear that they reflect my opinion and I need to put my case. Obviously, loyalty to one's Government is an important quality, but loyalty to the truth is a higher imperative.
	If I am right in my conclusions, it is a very serious matter indeed. The truth must be found and lessons must be learned by the Government and by our system of government, so that such things can never happen again.
	The Christian teaching on just war, to which the Liberal Democrat spokesman referredand I understand that the Muslim teaching is very similar, unsurprisinglysays that the cause must be just, the remedy proportionate, the war winnable, and that there must be no other way of putting right the wrong. The problem with the war in Iraq is that the possibility of resolving the problem in another way was not exhausted. It was therefore not a just war. That is why the Churches all over the world, including all the American Churches apart from the Southern Baptists, opposed the war at that time.
	As the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) said, most of us thought that we had to adhere to the possibility of military action to uphold the authority of the UN, but we wanted to exhaust the possibility of disarming Saddam Hussein and, if possible, displacing him without going to war and inflicting more hurt and suffering on the people of Iraq. We did not exhaust all the possibilities of achieving that.
	I am not one of those who believe that we could ignore the problem of Saddam Hussein and continue with the policy of containment. On that, I agree with the United States neo-conservatives, now the hawks in the Bush Administration. Saddam Hussein was a vicious tyrant, guilty of grave crimes against humanity, he was defying the UN, and sanctions were causing enormous suffering to the people of Iraq. But Saddam Hussein was the problem, not the people of Iraq. We therefore needed to try to find a way to resolve the problem without inflicting on the people of Iraq further suffering, war and the chaos that has come after war.
	The US Churches put forward such a plan. It came late, but it was well thought through. It included a proposal for coercive disarmament backed up by a UN-mandated force, the indictment of Saddam Hussein in order to bring him down and then a UN mandate in order to bring Iraq to democracy. There were other proposals that we should have tried, but I was always of the view that we had to be willing to contemplate the use of military force ultimately, and that we could not leave the situation as it was for a further 12 years.
	On weapons of mass destruction, there has been a great deal of discussion today and my time is limited. I saw all the written intelligence for a number of months and had a number of personal briefings from the security services. We are all agreed that the regime was determined to experiment with chemical and biological weapons. It had previously tried to have nuclear weapons, which had been dismantled by the previous weapons inspectors. That is why Saddam Hussein continued to defy the UN and why sanctions continued. That is not in dispute among us. The question is how weaponised were the materials, how imminent was the threat, and why could we not wait for the Blix process to be exhausted.
	The only reason not to allow Blix to go on, and thereby to throw away the unanimity that had been achieved in the Security Council on resolution 1441, was if there was some kind of urgency. I believe that the security services briefing was that there was a threat, as I have briefly tried to summarise, but then there was an exaggeration of the imminence of that danger. That is the importance of the 45 minutes and the suggestion of the potential link to al-Qaeda. There was an attempt to suggest an imminent threat that did not, in fact, exist.

Angela Browning: Will the right hon. Lady give way?

Clare Short: If I give way, Madam Deputy Speaker, does the time come off my 10 minutes?

Madam Deputy Speaker: No. The right hon. Lady will get an additional one minute.

Clare Short: I give way, then.

Angela Browning: I am grateful to the right hon. Lady. As somebody who could not support the Prime Minister in the Lobby that night, I have some sympathy with what she is saying. On 3 February, in relation to the al-Qaeda threat and the possibility that Saddam Hussein would make his weapons available to al-Qaeda so a third party would be the direct threat to us, not necessarily Saddam Hussein, the Prime Minister said:
	I repeat my warning: unless we take a decisive stand now as an international community, it is only a matter of time before these threats come together.[Official Report, 3 February 2003; Vol. 399, c. 23.]
	The Prime Minister was boxed in because he had troops deployed in Kuwait and war became the only option. That was so regrettable. It sounds to me as though the right hon. Lady would agree.

Clare Short: I shall deal with the points that the hon. Lady has made. The extraordinary thing about the al-Qaeda point is that al-Qaeda members must have gone to Iraq before the war. They must be there now. If there really was a risk from chemical and biological weapons, and indeed the International Atomic Energy Agency has said that the looting of the atomic plant has created the danger of the equipment for a dirty bomb becoming available, then why for heaven's sake was there not much more rapid action to make secure whatever material was in Iraq? That was extraordinary, and contradicts the claim that there was an al-Qaeda link. There will be more discussion of that and there will be inquiries, but I wish to make a number of other points, because I fear that there were other deceits on the way to war.
	Three very senior figures in Whitehall said to me that the Prime Minister had agreed in the summer to the date of 15 February for military action, and that that was later extended to mid-March. At the time, the Prime Minister was telling us that he was committed to a second resolution, and I preferred at that time to believe the Prime Minister. From reflecting, reading and examining everything that was done, I now believe that the evidence is overwhelming that there was a date. That is why the Blix process was not allowed to be completed. We acted according to a date, not to deal with the fundamental problem. If we were trying to deal with the fundamental problem, we could have allowed a bit more time for the Blix process. That is my view.
	The Foreign Secretary said at the time that we had to threaten force to avoid the use of force, and I agreed with that. That was his paradox. I agree that that is how we got 1441, but then came the contradiction. We were told that we had to go to war because we had troops in the desert, but we had deployed them in order to try to avoid war. That is explained only if there was a date to which we were working.
	The Prime Minister told us that we could not get a second resolution because the French had said that they would veto any second resolution. A member of the public sent me the transcript of the Chirac interview, and it is plain that he said clearly on 10 March that the Blix process needed to be completed and we had to see whether that could succeed in achieving disarmament, but if not, we would have to go back to the Security Council and the Security Council would have to authorise military action. We were misled about the French position, and the French have been vilified disgracefully, when it was not their position to rule out all military action. We will never know

Denis MacShane: Will my right hon. Friend give way on that point?

Clare Short: Do I get another minute?

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. May I explain to the right hon. Lady that she is allowed up to two minutes?

Clare Short: In that case, I give way.

Denis MacShane: I have the French transcript of the exact words that President Chirac said. Nowhere did he say that he was ready to contemplate the use of force. What he saidI do not refer to the veto referencewas that if there was a majority of nine on the Security Council authorising war, France would vote no. [Hon. Members: Ce soir.] Not ce soir. That is in a different part of the interview. He said that France would vote no, and that killed the chances of a UN path to peace.

Clare Short: I shall run out of time. I have the words of President Chirac on 10 March. He said that if the weapons inspectors came back to the Security Council, stated that they could not achieve disarmament, and said:
	'We are sorry but Iraq isn't co-operating, the progress isn't sufficient, we aren't in a position to achieve our goal, we won't be able to guarantee Iraq's disarmament', in that case it will be for the Security Council and it alone to decide the right thing to do. But in that case, of course, regrettably, the war would become inevitable. It isn't today.
	That is what Chirac said on 10 March.
	We will never know whether, if we had pursued the Blix process and indicted Saddam Hussein, we could have liberated Iraq without the horror, chaos, death and suffering of war. As a result of the secrecy and the element of deceit in getting to war by that date, preparations for the post-conflict situation were inadequate. The Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, which was set up in the Pentagon to deal with post-conflict Iraq, was full of politics about who was going to be the new Government of Iraq. That was not a matter for that body: it should have been left to the UN to be done properly under a Security Council mandate. ORHA did not face up to or prepare for the Geneva convention obligations: the keeping of order being fundamental, as well as the immediate provision of humanitarian relief and the maintenance of civil administration. There is chaos in Iraq, and some 70 people a week are dying.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. May I remind the right hon. Lady that the motion before us is about an independent inquiry?

Clare Short: I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I think that the independent inquiry should extend to these serious matters. Many people have lost their lives, including some of our soldiers and an awful lot of people in Iraq. There must be an inquiry into those matters.

Madam Deputy Speaker: The motion is about the use of intelligence information. I am sure that the right hon. Lady can concentrate her remarks on that.

Clare Short: I hear what you say, Madam Deputy Speaker, but the intelligence information was used to justify the action that I am discussing, and it could have been interpreted in such a way that a different route could have been taken to resolving the problems to which it referred.
	My time is almost gone, so I shall briefly explain the conclusions to which I have sadly come. We should have tried to resolve this crisis without military action if we could, but the grave accusation that I am making is that there was deceit on the way to military action. If we can be deceived about that, what can we not be deceived about? We must get to the bottom of this. The Government's record must be made absolutely clear, and there is a major lesson for our system of government. We must not make decisions like this. There must be better ways of making sure that information is properly used and decisions are properly made, especially when the lives of large numbers of human beings are at stake.

Tony Baldry: The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) in her opening and concluding comments, made it clear why the Government would be wise to accept this motion. This issue is about the integrity of the Government and the trust that people place in them. The right hon. Lady, who until recently was a member of the Cabinet, has laid the most serious allegations against the Prime Minister. In her opening comments she said in terms that the House had been misled by the Prime Minister. That is from a person who, until recently, had been a leading member of the Cabinet. I worked with the right hon. Lady in my capacity as Chairman of the Select Committee on International Development and, like all members of the Committee, I know the care with which she carried out her duties. We are confident that she would not have resigned from that post without good reason. After all, she was the first Secretary of State for International Development and had built up the Department over six years. We are all professional career politicians who know that people do not surrender such jobs unless they have some real reason of substance. The right hon. Lady has given us some insight into what that might be.
	We are also concerned about the integrity of the Government when we see the way in which they have responded to the stories in the past couple of days. It is the most bizarre action for No. 10 to put up the Leader of the House to make the allegations that he has made in a newspaper article and on the Today programme this morning. Everyone in the House knows that the Leader of the House, under any Government, is a senior member of the Cabinet, and he would not have made those press comments unless they had been fully cleared with No. 10 and with the machinery of government as a whole. We all know that the Today programme puts in bids for Ministers. We often hear John Humphrys and others saying that so and so was invited on to the programme and that they refused to come. The Leader of the House showed no reticence about going on the Today programme this morning to repeat his comments, allegations and accusations against the intelligence service.
	The purport of that and the reason why Members are concerned is that it gives the impression of a Government trying to spin away a story about whether the House has been misled by suggesting that it is all down to some rogue intelligence officer who has been briefing journalists such as Andrew Gilligan and others. They contend that that is really what the story is about, rather than the concerns of the right hon. Members for Livingston (Mr. Cook) and for Birmingham, Ladywood that the House has been misled over a period of time.
	I hope that the Government understand that if they cannot start to reassure our constituents about such issues, confidence not only in them but in the machinery of government will simply leach away. Many of our constituents will be scratching their heads about other matters this evening. We repeatedly heard the Prime Minister say at the Dispatch Box today that the reason why weapons of mass destruction had not been found was that the search had only just begun and the team had only just started its work. I ask those on the Treasury Bench about the large numbers of my constituents who wrote to me and visited me in constituency surgeries. They came from Church groups and other groups, and included other concerned individuals, and they lobbied hard before the conflict, saying that the UN weapons inspectors should be given more time to find weapons of mass destruction and establish whether they existed. How on earth will the Government and the Prime Minister explain to those peoplemy constituents and those of every Member of this Housethat there was insufficient time to look for weapons of mass destruction, so it was necessary to go to war and remove a regime by force of arms, but some eight weeks later, when no weapons of mass destruction have purportedly been found, the Prime Minister's excuse is that we have only just started our work? How on earth can those claims be reconcilable? The suspicion among large numbers of our constituents is that this is a question not so much of weapons of mass destruction as of words of mass deception used by the Prime Minister and others.

Mark Hendrick: It is a question not of eight weeks, but of about 12 years in which the United Nations has been trying to get the weapons out of Iraq. I put it to the hon. Gentleman that he does his constituents a disservice and insults their intelligence, as the Prime Minister made that clear today.

Tony Baldry: I think that the hon. Gentleman was not listening to what the Prime Minister said. He was asked repeatedly why weapons of mass destruction had not been found in Iraq. The hon. Gentleman and every hon. Member can read Hansard tomorrow, but it is clear that, on numerous occasions, the Prime Minister said at the Dispatch Box today that the reason why the weapons had not been found was that the new inspection team had only just started its work and could hardly be expected to have found them in such a short period.
	The hon. Gentleman misses the key point, to which I shall return, as it is very important. The key point concerns the integrity of the Government and the machinery of government. That is why it is vital that there is an inquiry such as that proposed in the motion. I also find it bizarre that the Foreign Secretary should be so dismissive of judicial inquiries. I speak as a former Minister who was the subject of a judicial inquiry almost instantly after this Government came to office. I had been a Minister in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and no sooner were the Government through the door of No. 10 than they set up a judicial inquiry into the handling of BSE

Angela Browning: Led by the Master of the Rolls.

Tony Baldry: Yes. We made no complaint about the judicial inquiry to which we were subject, but at no time did the Foreign Secretary or other Ministers mention the reasons that they have given at the Dispatch Box today for not conducting a judicial inquiry into such matters. Only when the issue starts to touch on the integrity of Ministers in this Government, and of the Prime Minister himself and other key Ministers, do the Government become so reticent about the idea of a judicial inquiry.
	The Foreign Secretary made it clear today that co-operation with the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs will be pretty minimal. As a Select Committee Chairman, I had not appreciated until today that the answers that we are given depend on our security clearance. I am not quite sure what my security clearance is or whether one's security clearance as a Member of this House changes when one ceases to be a Minister. I seem to recall that when I was appointed as a junior Foreign Office Minister, like the Minister for Europe, I was given what were known as my powers, of which I was very proud. They were purportedly signed by the Queen. When I took them home and showed them to my children, my daughter, with great perspicacity, said, The Queen doesn't really know you, does she, daddy?
	It is clear that the Foreign Affairs Committee will be told only what it is convenient for the Government to tell it, and the excuse will be given that it cannot be told certain things on security grounds. That was the explanation that was given this afternoon. None of us doubts the integrity of members of the Intelligence and Security Committeethey are all very honourable and senior Members of this Housebut it is by definition a Committee that meets in secret and is largely dependent on what the Government choose to give it.
	The Government should look themselves in the face and consider the damage that will be done to the machinery of government, given the allegations made by two senior former Cabinet Ministers who were so recently involved in the day-to-day handling of these issues, if they seek to brush matters of such importance under the carpet and refuse to have a full, proper, independent judicial inquiry.

Mike Gapes: This morning John Keegan, the military historian and journalist on The Daily Telegraph, made the extraordinary claim that the war ended too soon. I suppose that for those who wanted millions of refugees and tens of thousands of dead, and wanted us still to be fighting street by street to liberate Baghdad, it did end too soon. One of the underlying elements of the motion that we are debating is that those who opposed military action, together with those who for opportunist reasons wish to associate themselves with a motion tabled by a party that they oppose, have decided to unite with the feeding frenzy that is going on in the mass media.
	Because there is no effective political opposition, certain journalists, including certain correspondents at the BBC, believe that it is their job to generate a feeding frenzy of a kind thatin their view, as they have openly been sayingcould bring down the Government. Democracy in this country is ill served by such opportunism. It is also ill servedI say this as someone who has never been a Ministerby people who are happy to be Ministers for many years, but then bite the hand that fed them. I say that with great regret, because I have enormous respect for many of those who have taken that position. I find it sad.
	I remind my colleagues that there was no great opposition from some people in 1998 when we bombed Iraq in Operation Desert Fox, or when we launched military assaults against Serbia without a United Nations resolution. Those same people were happy to be in Government at that time. We have to be honest about the motives behind some of the comments that have been made today.
	On the basis of what has happened in the past few weeks, if the military action had not happened and the Iraqi people had not been liberated, we would presumably be carrying on with the inadequate policy of containment, with, potentially, tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children dying as a result of a policy that we knew to be flawed, but which, apparently, the former Foreign Secretary thought should have continued. As the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) said, we would have withdrawn our troops from Kuwaitand presumably from the no-fly zones, toothereby allowing a resurgent Saddam to take an ideological leadership position and again threaten his neighbours in Kuwait, Iran and Saudi Arabia. We know that he used chemical weapons not only against his own people but against the Iranians, and would have wiped Kuwait off the map.
	Those were the realities, and those were the stakes that we were playing for. I say that as somebody who in 1988 campaigned against the policy of a Conservative Government who were co-operating with military sales to Saddam's regime. I say that as somebody who invited Kurdish leaders to my constituency, including Barham Salihnow prime minister of the Iraqi Kurdish autonomous areawhen he was the London representative of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. That was before I was even elected as a Member of Parliament, when I worked in the Labour party's international department.
	I make no apologies; I have supported regime change in Iraq for 25 years. When I was a student, I was a member of an organisation called the Committee against Repression and for Democratic Rights in Iraq. There has been a legitimate, non-right-wing republican agenda among many people on the left hoping for regime change in Iraq, and if we had followed the route advocated by some people whom we have heard today, that regime change would not have happened.
	It was suggested by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) that we should have found another way of putting right the wrong. The Iraqi people tried to put right the wrong in another way. They rose up in 1991 and the Shi'a Marsh Arabs were brutally suppressed and killed, while the Kurds were driven into the mountains. The Iraqis tried to assassinate Saddam Hussein on many occasions. Why were there all those lookalikes, those people who had plastic surgery and who went around pretending to be Saddam Hussein? He had to have them because he was detested by his people.

Llew Smith: rose

Mike Gapes: I will give way, but I hope that I will get some injury time.

Llew Smith: I, too, was one of the people who campaigned against Saddam Hussein in the 1980s. Does my hon. Friend recognise, however, that we were informed by the Government that we were going to war with Iraq not to achieve regime change but because it had weapons of mass destruction and was capable of delivering them within 45 minutes?

Mike Gapes: There were many reasons why the military action came about. One was that, according to UN Security Council resolution 1441, Saddam had not complied immediately and unconditionally with a number of resolutions over a 12-year period. A second reason was the report produced in December by the Iraqi Government in response to that resolution. It was totally inadequate and was shown within a few days to have concealed certain things. A third reason was that, as the Blix report revealed, Saddam had failedamid a cluster of unanswered questionsto list all the things that had been done to destroy weapons such as anthrax and botulinum. All those things were alleged to have been got rid of, but no evidence or documents were produced.
	We know that since the conflict, the Kurdish forces in the north of Iraq have discovered some mobile vehicles that are still being investigated to discover whether they are mobile biological weapons facilities. That was reported on 8 May. We also knowthis has to be placed on recordthat when we talk about chemical or biological weapons, we are talking about very small quantities of materials that can be held in tanks in the back of vehicles or buried underground so finding them without co-operation is difficult.
	This is the essence of the point about the Security Council resolutions and the fact that the Saddam regime did not co-operate. Within only nine months of South Africa saying that it was not going to be a nuclear weapons state, the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors had gone in, with the full co-operation of the South African Government, and had been able to declare the country nuclear weapons-free, because it had got rid of its weapons and told the inspectors how it had been done. The Iraqis never did that.
	Given the nature of the Iraqi regime, the lies that we know were told between 1991 and 1995, the defecting son-in-law Kamalwho then went backand other information that was revealed by other sources, it is clear that the UN was lied to throughout the 1990s. We now find that we have not been given any information on what happened to various items detailed in the reports that Hans Blix produced in March.

Malcolm Savidge: My hon. Friend mentioned Kamal. Am I correct in thinking that Kamal told the UN weapons inspectors that the material had been destroyed by that time?

Mike Gapes: Kamal might have said that, but he also said that the Iraqis had things that the regime had previously denied having. My point is that this was a lying, corrupt, secretive regime. We therefore have to recognise that we need time to find out what has been going on there.
	I do not know what has been going on because I am not there and I am not carrying out the inspections, but I believe that even if not one single chemical, biological or nuclear weapon or warhead is found, it was right and justifiable to liberate the people of Iraq from Ba'ath fascist tyranny and terror.
	Given the middle east peace process, the stopping of payments to suicide bombers who reject a two-state solution in the middle east, the facilitation of pluralism and democracy throughout the region and the opening of possibilities for Iraq's oil wealth to be spent not on gold bath taps but on alleviating poverty and providing electricity and water for the Shi'a Arabs and the Kurds in Iraq, we were right. What we did was right, and most of the rest of all this is a distraction.
	What our Government did in support of the liberation of the people of Iraq is something of which I am proud. We should not apologise. We should say that we did the right thing, as we will be seen to have done in decades to come. Today the liberated Polish people are joining NATO and the European Union. We no longer quibble about whether it was right to go to war in Poland. In the 1930s, 140 Tory MPs lined up with Adolf Hitler in the Anglo-German Fellowship. We do not talk about that now; we forget about it. But the reality of the world today is that sometimes people must admit that they were wrong, and that it was better to do something very painful and difficult than not to act. It was right to liberate Iraq.

Crispin Blunt: Of course we do not talk about George Lansbury and the Labour party voting for further disarmament in 1935 and 1936 either, so I will not follow up the observations of the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes).
	For nine years the Labour party has been led by the Prime Minister; for nine years the party's presentation has been organised by Alastair Campbell. Now it is reaping the whirlwind that it sowed by subordinating the truth to the necessity of conveying the message that the party decided. Seeing the reaping of that whirlwind, I have a sense of schadenfreude. I entirely supported the Government's decisions on Iraq: I think that that policy was correct, and is now being seen to be correct, given the appalling evidence of crimes committed against the Iraqi people by their Government. Our actions, I believe, stand justified at the bar of world opinion. Nevertheless, the idea that we took those actions to defend ourselves against some immediate threat to the United Kingdom from weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is of course palpable nonsense. It was wrong for the Government to put themselves in the position of having to rely on the preamble to a document referring to Iraq's ability to activate weapons of mass destruction that would pose a threat to the UK within 45 minutes.

Calum MacDonald: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Crispin Blunt: I want to develop my point a little further, because it is important.
	The case for action against Iraq relates to our action in 1991, when we went to war in the first place to liberate Kuwait. The fact that that action did not proceed to its conclusion with the removal of Saddam Hussein had to do with the fact that we thought he was going to fall anyway. Two thirds of the provinces in Iraq were rebelling, and it was assumed that the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs would do for the regime. We can say now, with the benefit of the knowledge that we now have, that we made an appalling mistake and an appalling misjudgment in not ending the affair in 1991, and removing the regime by whatever means were then necessary.
	In 1995 or 1996, Saddam Hussein's sons-in-law produced evidence of a biological weapons programme. Their decision to return to Iraq was extraordinaryabout as extraordinary as the fact that Saddam Hussein did not remove his weapons of mass destruction in the face of the arrival of the inspectors and what was obviously going to happen.

Denis MacShane: Excellent speech!

Crispin Blunt: I am grateful to the Minister. I support the Government in respect of their action; they are in trouble as a result of the presentation of their reasons for that action. The case for action in Iraq has been sustained since 1991. It was sustained by the evidence of a biological weapons programme. It was sustained in 1998 when the weapons inspectors were thrown out. What were we able to do in 1998? We could only engage in Operation Desert Fox, an emotional spasm of air bombardment to try to have some effect on the weapons of mass destruction capability. Why? Because the United States was not prepared to will the military means to take necessary action to rid the middle east, a vital area of the world, of that appalling regime.

John Bercow: Given that Ministers right up to the Prime Minister knew that Saddam Hussein had had ample opportunity over the years to conceal his weapons of mass destruction, does my hon. Friend not think that there may be many a Minister who now wishes that he had made, in support of the case for military action, the speech that has just been made by the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes), but that the difficulty for the Government is that none of those Ministers did so?

Crispin Blunt: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, who displays his usual perspicacity. I am not sure that Ministers would have wanted to make entirely the same speech as the hon. Member for Ilford, South, but they would have wanted to make elements of it.

Denis MacShane: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the threat from Iraq
	arises also because of the violent and aggressive nature of Saddam Hussein's regime. His record of internal repression and external aggression gives rise to unique concerns about the threat he poses?
	That was in the report published in September. That was the argument of the Government and of Ministers then.

Crispin Blunt: Of course I accept that, but then the Government have to embroider the case, as they do with all their other presentations. It may be true that an element of weapons could have been put together within 45 minutes. It would be useful to know the source of the information, and of the assessment that weapons could be put together in 45 minutes. I ask the Minister to publish that at some stage. There cannot be any possible reason for protecting the source.
	What was the technical basis of that assessment? It is a precise time. Are we talking about a particular warhead being attached to a missile? [Interruption.] The Minister will be able to make the case when he winds up. What precise technical reasons underlie the assessment that weapons could be put together in 45 minutes? What was the nature of the weapons? Were they biological weapons, chemical weapons, chemical shells? [Interruption.] The Minister will happily refer to that report in his winding-up speech.
	In 1998 we could do no more than undertake Operation Desert Fox, because the United States was not prepared to will the necessary military meansto deploy soldiers on the groundto do what was necessary in the interests of the Iraqi people and of stability in the region, and to deal with the potential threat from weapons of mass destruction in the hands of someone like Saddam Hussein. We were not prepared to do that in 1998but that changed on 11 September 2001, when addressing the Iraqi issue became a domestic priority in the United States.
	I suspect that any UK Government between 1991 and now would have been willing to take the action that has been taken to get rid of Saddam Hussein, in the appropriate circumstances, with the support and willingness of the United States to act. It has plainly been in the interests of the middle east, and of the world, to take the action that we didbut the Government are in trouble now and are on the receiving end of legitimate requests for inquiries, because of the culture of spin that goes right to the heart of what they do.
	That was revealed in the attitude of the Prime Minister in responding to a question from my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr. Maude) on the G8 summit. The Prime Minister talked in a flippant way, saying, That is the business of politics. What Ministers, the Government and Labour Members need to understand is the enormous disservice that has been done to the business of politics by the way in which the Labour party has conducted itself under the leadership of the Prime Minister. The way in which they have presented their attacks on other parties and their twisting of arguments throughout that period have done a disservice to the business of politics.
	We have come to the moment when the Prime Minister needs his credibility more than anything else. He has argued for putting British troops into action and for taking military action that, in my judgment, was in the interests of the United Kingdom and of the world. But of course, he does not have that credibility. It has been destroyed by the way in which he and other Ministersbut in particular the Spinmeister himselfhave allowed the truth to be twisted and manipulated.
	That process continues now. During Prime Minister's questions, the Prime Minister again advanced the canard that the Conservative party is pledged to a 20 per cent. cut in public expenditure. He knows perfectly well that that is not true. If he goes on

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is going a little wide of the motion that we are discussing.

Crispin Blunt: I am dealing with the subject of credibility, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If the Prime Minister comes to the Dispatch Box week after week to deal with what he described to my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham as the business of politics, and is able to play fast and loose with the truth, is it any surprise that the electorate no longer believe him when they judge his words on an issue as serious as Iraq? That is why we need an inquiry. A Prime Minister ought to command credibility. I believe him on the issue of Iraq, however. To me, his speech to this House last September was the first time that he had commanded total credibility and presented a totally convincing case.
	I want the Government to take this message away. They have played fast and loose with the truth in presenting the case for their policies and the case against those of their political opponents. It is about time that the level of political debate was raised; then, when the Prime Minister needs credibility in order to make a case, he can carry the country with him and not find that there are 2 million people on the streets who do not believe a word that he says.

Calum MacDonald: We have listened to 10 minutes of pure spin from the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt). I listened carefully to the opening speech by the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell), and to those who intervened to support the case for an independent inquiry into the intelligence available to the Government before the war. So far as I can discern, there are two basic reasons why this call is being made, and I shall deal with them in turn.
	The main reason is the failure so far to find weapons of mass destruction. That is of course frustrating for anybody who wants these weapons to be dealt with, but the real question is whether we can make the logical leap that many Members seem to be making: that because of the failure to discover weapons of mass destruction, we must conclude that they do not and did not exist, and that the entire war was therefore based on a fallacy. To make that leap of deductive logic would be to fly in the face of more than 10 years of evidence, gathered not by British or American intelligence sources in Iraq, but by the UN itself in Iraq. That 10-year history demonstrates clearly how difficult it was to locate and unearth any evidence of weapons programmes.
	We should remember, for example, that UN inspectors were searching for a full three years in Iraq before they discovered, in 1995, that there was a full-blown biological weapons programme. We should also remember that they discovered that programme not by stumbling across it during a search, but only because of information that they received from a senior defector: Saddam Hussein's own son-in-law, as it happens. He revealed not only the existence of the biological weapons programme, but that key documents were hidden in a chicken farm and that rocket parts were buried in the back garden of an Iraqi general. They would not have been discovered through a physical search; they were discovered only through the information provided by defectors.

Llew Smith: My hon. Friend gives credibility to the evidence given by the defectorSaddam Hussein's son-in-lawwho was later murdered by the regime, so does he also accept the evidence of the same person that Iraq had destroyed its weapons of mass destruction?

Calum MacDonald: The evidence provided by that person was important, but when he returned to Iraq, Saddam Hussein immediately put him, along with his family, to death. He led weapons inspectors precisely to where the items were located and he revealed the existence of the biological weapons programme.
	There is further evidence of how difficult it is to carry out a physical search in a country like Iraq. The most striking aspect of what the coalition forces have so far failed to find is Saddam Hussein himself, his two sons and his entire entourage. They have not been located and I guess that they would take up more physical space than the chemical and biological agents that we are looking for. They are certainly much more difficult to hide. I assume that Saddam Hussein and his sons cannot simply be buried in the back garden of some Iraqi general, but I hope that no one is leaping from the failure to discover them to the conclusion that Saddam and his two sons are no longer alive or hiding in Iraq. That would be a foolish conclusion to reach. It is similarly foolish, and juvenile, to leap from the failure to discover WMD to the conclusion that the Iraqi Government closed down the weapons programme after the inspectors left in 1998. They consistently avoided closing down the programme through all the years of inspections right up to 1998.
	In my view, the primary task is to locate Saddam and the top party leadership, because, until we apprehend them, we will not have much chance of gaining the inside information based on the confessions of human intelligence that we need to lead us to where the chemical and biological agents are located.
	The second reason advanced to justify the call for an independent inquiry is the claim made by anonymous intelligence sources to the press that No. 10 doctored the intelligence dossier, particularly in respect of the possibility of Iraq using WMD within 45 minutes. It is alleged that that was done in the knowledge that the information was false, or probably false, thereby undermining the case for war. The critics suggest that the 45-minute claim influenced or determined either the legality of the warthe point made by the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fifeor its political acceptability and public support. I do not believe that either proposition is justified.
	Let us deal first with the legality of war. The proposition that, because the 45-minute claim was a fallacy, the legal case for war becomes invalid is one of the most ridiculous arguments that I have ever heard in this Chamberand it is particularly disappointing to hear it advanced by the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife. The legal case was based entirely on resolution 1441 and the older resolution 687, which the Attorney-General made crystal clear. Contrary to what the right hon. and learned Gentleman said, there is nothing in the Attorney-General's statement about imminent danger to the United Kingdom, or to any other state. It is based entirely on the fact that Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi Government were not complying and were in material breach of existing UN resolutions.
	The argument for war was perfectly simple. The UN knew that the Iraqi Government once possessed large quantities of chemical and biological agents, a significant quantity of which had never been accounted for by that Government. The UN therefore demanded that the Iraqi Government either hand over the remaining agents for destruction orand it is a highly important orif they had already destroyed them, that they hand over the documents to verify their destruction. That option was always available to the Iraqi Government, but they followed neither of those options, as Blix himself confirmed in his final report. Blix did hope that, given more time, the Iraqi Government would eventually do one or the other, but I believe that the judgment of the British Prime Minister and the American President was more validthat the Iraqis would not comply however much time was extended to them. The use of force was therefore authorised and could be exercised.

John Pugh: I have tried hard to follow the hon. Gentleman's argument and he seems to suggest that the failure to find the weapons is no reason to think they do not exist. What other reason could there be, and what other reason would he accept if, as a fair-minded man, he were to reach a conclusion that they might not exist?

Calum MacDonald: The fact that no evidence of a biological weapons programme was found in three years by UN inspectors in full cry in Iraq did not mean that it did not exist. It did exist, but that became known only after defections made the information available. Most of the breakthroughs in discovery and location have been made on the basis of human intelligence and the delivery of information, not the physical searches that the hon. Gentleman mentions.
	Some Opposition Members have argued that the 45-minute claim in the dossier was the decisive factor that swung opinion in favour of war, in the House and among the public. Even the Liberal Democrat spokesman appeared to make such a claim. I confess that I was always scepticaland I was not aloneabout the 45-minute claim. Anybody who swung from being anti-war to pro-war on the basis of the 45-minute claim in the dossier needs to have their head examined.
	Because I was always sceptical, I am not surprisedfar less shockedby the suggestion that the 45-minute claim may turn out to have been false. That would be a failure of that piece of speculative intelligence, but it would be a much less striking and embarrassing failure than the one that occurred before the waras pointed out by the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fifewhich was the claim by British intelligence that the Iraqi Government had tried to obtain uranium ore from Niger in west Africa. That claim was supposedly based on documents that, when they were handed over to the international authority responsible, were shown to be a transparent and rather obvious forgery. That intelligence debacle, or cock-up, was much more embarrassing and worrying in its incompetence than the 45-minute saga.

Pete Wishart: Can the hon. Gentleman explain what speculative intelligence is? Intelligence is either intelligence or it is nothing at all.

Calum MacDonald: Intelligence can be a claim that is passed to intelligence services from a source within a country, and a judgment has to be made on its validity and plausibility. That happens with 99 per cent. of intelligence. If we could look the claim up in a book of statistics, or find some other factual evidence for it, it would not need to be based on intelligence.
	I mention the Niger intelligence failure from before the war, because I do not remember any demands for an independent judicial inquiry into the issue when it was exposed as a forgery and a false claim. Why has the 45-minute claim now assumed so much exaggerated and absurd importance? Why are anonymous sources in the intelligence services briefing the press? It should be noted, incidentally, that they are not approaching their local MP, the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Defence Committee or the Intelligence and Security Committee. Who are these spooks who are briefing the press? Are they the same ones who used to spy on the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the 1980s on the ground that advocating nuclear disarmament made people potential traitors? Have those spooks suddenly turned into pacifists, stricken by conscience? Is the source of the stories free from any political motivation? Anybody who believes that the stories are a disinterested attempt to serve the public good is much more gullible than anyone who gave credence to the 45-minute claim. For that reason, I hope that the House will treat the leaks and briefings with the contempt that they deserve.

Patrick Cormack: It is a particular pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Western Isles (Mr. MacDonald). He spoke with calm and reasoned good sense, and I hope that the House will heed what he said. It is a pleasure to follow him for another reason too, as he and I campaigned very strongly for justice in Bosnia. We were in a small minority, along with the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) and the right hon. and learned Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell), who opened this debate. We wanted action to be taken there, and we were not especially bothered about UN resolutions. However, I must not digress on that point, Mr. Deputy Speaker, or you would rightly rule me out of order.
	I am bound to say that I am sorry that the Foreign Secretary is not here. I appreciate the many demands on his time, but I am sorry that neither he nor my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram), the shadow Foreign Secretary, are present. They should have been here throughout this relatively short debate. That they are not is tantamount to an insult to the House.
	I also think that it is greatly regrettable that the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood should have exposed her conscience and then walked out. That is not the way to treat the House of Commons. In recent days, there has been some nauseating nitpicking by people who lost the argument and the vote on 18 March. They are trying to revisit the arguments and the debates, and it is important to put that on record.
	I accept what my hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt) said, although he too has left the Chamber. He made the point that the Prime Minister had in effect connived at undermining his own credibility by the ultra-reliance on spin that he has displayed during his period in office. I made that point when I spoke in the first or second of the Iraq debates. It is, regrettably, true, although I do not doubt the Prime Minister's good faith or integrity on this issue.
	The question at the centre of the debate is whether we believe that our Prime Minister was acting in the national interest and in good faith. Did he place before the House of Commons information that he believed to be true? Frankly, I accept that he did believe it to be true. Like the hon. Member for Western Isles, I always regarded the 45-minute claim with more than a pinch of salt, and I adopted a similar approach to some of the other claims too. However, I do not believe that the claims were made to dupe the House, nor that they succeeded in doing so. I doubt very much whether many of those who voted on 18 March would have changed their vote if it had been proved in that debate that the claims were false.
	In parenthesis, if the vote had gone the other way on 18 March and the British Government had fallen and the Iraqi Government remained in office, would the world have been a better or safer place? Perhaps that is a subject for another debate.
	What should be done by way of inquiry? That is the true subject of today's debate. Sadly, I could not attend the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs yesterday afternoon, as the hon. Member for Thurrock (Andrew Mackinlay) knows. I did not therefore have the chance to participate in its discussion but, as a good democrat, I accept that a decision was made by my colleagues and of course I go along with it. However, on this occasion, I believe that it is right that the Intelligence and Security Committee should be given a prime role.
	I disagree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Devizes, who would prefer a long-winded judicial inquiry. Of course, it is possible in such circumstances for hon. Members of all parties to score points, as happened with the Phillips inquiry on BSE, and all the rest of it. However, what the House is considering today is how best to deal with a particular matter.
	The best way to deal with the matter is quickly. Those of our colleagues who have been appointed to the ISC have the clearance that others do not have. We should entrust to them

Andrew MacKinlay: indicated dissent.

Patrick Cormack: It is a sore point with me as well as with the hon. Gentleman, but nevertheless I am merely stating a fact. It is reasonable for us to call on those colleagues to examine the matter with rigorous impartiality and detailed scrutiny, and then to report on it. I believe the Prime Minister's assurance that the report will be published in full. That report must be given to the House as soon as possible.
	Then we can see what it has said. It would be arrogant and presumptuous, as well as downright stupid, to anticipate what it will say. I do not know what it will say. If the report is very critical of the Prime Minister, I shall be surprised and distressed, and it will be a most serious matter. However, we need to know.
	The Intelligence and Security Committee is the right body to conduct the investigation and report to the House. It is, after all, a committee of parliamentarians, and they, above all, are best able to judge the integrity of other parliamentarians. I do not believe for a moment that my right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary meant to demean the House, but the logical consequence of his argument is that we cannot trust our fellow parliamentarians to report to us on what they have assessed and seen. That is very damaging, and adds to the erosion of the influence of this place, which has proceeded at alarming and disturbing speed in recent years.
	I want to bring back public respect for the integrity of Parliament. I want a report that is thorough and detailed that we can discuss and debate. It must be produced quickly and effectively. Producing it with true expedition is the best way in which we can serve the House and the cause before us. That must not, however, afford an opportunity to revisit outworn arguments, or to try to re-run a vote that was decisively carried on 18 March. Nor, above all, must the process distract us from the absolute priority of restoring Iraq and creating a stable democracy, which will take time. It must not take our eyes off the war against terrorism, in which we all have a truly vested interest.
	Nor must we be distracted from the true priorities, and, perhaps above all, from peace in the middle east and the present process there. Let us not imagine for one moment that if we continue to snipe and to attack the Prime Minister on an issue on which many of us fundamentally agree with him, we will not undermine in the eyes of the world his credibility, and the credibility of the President of the United States, when it comes to the middle east peace process. I urge colleagues in all parts of the House to have a thought for such things. Perhaps some of my immediate colleagues may do what I do not often do, or particularly like doing, and join me in the Government Lobby this evening.

Llew Smith: I have been informed that I have only a few minutes, so I shall try to be brief.
	The motion, which I shall support in the Division Lobby, outlines the reasons that we were given for going to war. One was the Prime Minister's assertion that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was capable of delivering that weaponry within 45 minutes. Some people could not accept that explanation. Some of us believe that there were other reasons for going to war, including oil and the determination of the United States to control what happens in the Gulf.

Barry Gardiner: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Llew Smith: No, I only have a few minutes.
	Because of our opposition to the war and our refusal to accept the explanations put forward by the Prime Minister, several of us were accused of appeasing Saddam Hussein. That shocked, saddened and surprised us. Some of us opposed Saddam Hussein way back in the 1980s.
	Indeed, some of us have been opposing the arms trade for many a long year. We opposed arms sales to evil regimes such as Iraq and many others. We still oppose the arms trade. We oppose the situation whereby, in 2002, the UK exported to more than 150 countries and licensed arms to 20 countries that had been engaged in serious conflict since 1997.
	Some of us who oppose the war are the same people who have been opposing weapons of mass destruction for our whole adult life. We have opposed nuclear weapons in this countrythe weapons of ultimate mass destruction. We opposed weapons of mass destruction being in the hands of Israel. For many years, we opposed chemical weaponry and the dropping of napalm on Vietnam by the United States, destroying the land and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese citizens.
	Some of those who now accuse us of being appeasers are the same people who, in the 1980s, regarded Saddam Hussein as the friend of the west. They supported arms sales not only to Saddam Hussein but to many other evil regimes. They justified those arms sales on the basis that they were good for jobs, forgetting that while that may have been so, those arms were destroying many lives.
	The same people who refused to join us in campaigning against weapons of mass destruction in this country told us that ours were friendly weapons of mass destruction that would defend western civilisation and keep back the communist hordes. One of those people was the Secretary of State for Defence who now says that he would be willing to press the button that would start nuclear confrontationthe ultimate act of madness.
	We continue to be told that war with Iraq was necessary because Iraq had those weapons of mass destruction, which were a threat to the world, and because it was willing to use them and could deliver them within 45 minutes, yet we have still not found those weapons. Even if Iraq had those weapons, it certainly did not use them when the war was going on. We are now told that there is a good reason for that: the Iraqis destroyed their weapons of mass destruction a few minutes, or a few days, before the war commenced. I cannot accept that explanation. I cannot accept that a relatively minor military power such as Iraq would go into battle against the strongest military powers on earthpowers with nuclear weapons, the weapons of ultimate mass destructionand throw away their most effective weaponry. That does not make sense.
	In a press conference on Monday, the Prime Minister responded to the concerns and criticisms that no weapons of mass destruction had been discovered in Iraq. He said:
	I think it is important that if people actually have evidence that they produce it.
	I agree with that. However, the Prime Minister has a similar obligation. If, as he says, there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, he has an obligation to produce the evidence.
	Before the invasion of Iraq, the Prime Minister referred to an interview with General Kamal about Iraq's attempts to develop weapons of mass destruction. The Prime Minister said that, in 1995:
	Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein Kamal, defected to Jordan. He disclosed a far more extensive biological weapons programme and, for the first time, said Iraq had weaponised the programmesomething that Saddam had always strenuously denied. All this had been happening while the inspectors were in Iraq.
	Kamal also revealed Iraq's crash programme to produce a nuclear weapon in 1990.[Official Report, 18 March 2003; Vol. 401, c. 761.]
	However, the Prime Minister misled the House by omission because General Kamal also told his interviewers that Iraq had destroyed its weapons of mass destruction by 1995, as had been revealed by Newsweek on 3 March, only a few weeks earlier.
	On page 13 of the transcript of the interview, which was posted on the BBC's Today programme website, Kamal is recorded as saying:
	All weaponsbiological, chemical, missile, nuclearwere destroyed.
	On 26 March I asked the Prime Minister if he would place in the Library the text of the interview provided by Kamal on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. The Prime Minister replied:
	Following his defection...Kamal was interviewed by UNSCOM and by a number of other agencies. Details concerning the interviews were made available to us on a confidential basis. The UK was not provided with transcripts of the interviews.[Official Report, 26 March 2003; Vol. 402, c. 235W.]
	But the BBC had those transcripts. Why then were the Prime Minister, the security services and President Bush's Administration prepared to believe the defector Kamal's information on the extent of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction procurement and development network, but not to listen to information on the Iraqi regime's destruction of weapons of mass destruction?
	I repeat that my opinion is that the war had very little, if anything, to do with weapons of mass destruction. I could never accept the explanation that Iraq not only had the weaponry but the capability to develop and deliver them within 45 minutes. I said at the beginning that I thought the war was about oil and about who controlled the Gulf. I thought it then, and I still think it.

Michael Moore: If nothing else, this afternoon's debate has illustrated that Iraq remains an issue of major public concern to hon. Members in all parts of the House. In framing our motion we might have focused on several different issues to do with Iraq, such as humanitarian issues or the governance of the country. Those two are important and no doubt in future we shall have an opportunity to debate them on the Floor of the House.
	However, right now the public are mostly and properly concerned about the whole issue of weapons of mass destruction and the basis on which this country went to war. In the course of the debate a number of hon. Members have suggested that we are revisiting the arguments for or against the war set out as late as March. In so doing they tend to skip over many of the points that were raised by those Liberal Democrats who opposed the war at that stage.

Stephen Hesford: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Michael Moore: No.
	Liberal Democrat Members never denied that there was a history of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. We never denied the evil history of Saddam Husseinwe were hugely critical of it, as every right-thinking individual would be. We never argued that Saddam Hussein should not be disarmed. We were arguing that containment and deterrence should continue. We argued that we should take the United Nations route. As the weapons inspectors continued their work, we argued that they deserved more time.
	The Government passionately and clearly argued a different case. They did so principally on the basis of weapons of mass destruction. They said that was the major reason why action was required. They did not advocate action mainly on the basis of the need for regime change, although they properly point out many of the benefits of the fact that Saddam Hussein has now gone.
	The issue of its being possible for weapons to be fired in 45 minutes was at the crux of the Government's case

Barry Gardiner: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Michael Moore: Just bear with me. I am afraid my time is rather short.
	The issue was at the crux of the Government's case when they were arguing that we should be going into conflict.

Jack Straw: That statement is demonstrably incorrect. I have been unable to find a single speech on 18 March that even mentioned the 45-minute point, still less made it the crux of the debate.

Michael Moore: Well, the Foreign Secretary used phrases such as that time had run out, and in different parts of the build-up to the conflict[Interruption.] The point I was about to make before the Foreign Secretary intervened was, whether or not one accepts what the hon. Member for Western Isles (Mr. MacDonald) was saying about this being a literal truth or otherwise, it was symbolic. It was symbolic of the fact that Saddam Hussein had sufficient weapons of mass destruction, and a sufficient state of preparedness that they were a danger to those around him.

Barry Gardiner: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Michael Moore: No, I shall not.
	The conflict is now well past but we do not underestimate the fragile nature of the situation in Iraq and the real danger in which the Iraqis and our armed forces continue to find themselves. There is no question but that the coalition partners are now in control and supported by United Nations resolution 1483. However, there is a serious question of why it has taken until now to establish the Iraq survey group that will attempt to map and discover where the weapons of mass destruction are.
	We were told in advance of going to war that rogue elements in Iraq and elsewhere would use weapons of mass destruction and that the weapons would represent a serious terrorist threat if passed on to groups such as al-Qaeda or simply leaked out to other countries. Given that context, it is remarkable that we have not been in a position in which we were able to ascertain where the weapons of mass destruction might be until now.
	The Government have argued that there is no need for an inquiry, but the continuing failure of the coalition to account for weapons of mass destruction raises serious questions not only for hon. Members and the millions of people who opposed the war, but for many who supported the Government in the House and elsewhere on the basis of the Prime Minister's assurances and the evidence offered by the Government at different times. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Fife (Mr. Campbell) set out several key questions, including the specific question of the extent to which Downing street tried to change the dossier last September. Who was responsible for the final content of the so-called dodgy dossier? Who fabricated the assertion that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium from Africa? We now add questions about the extent to which the Government relied on Iraqi sources who were motivated by little else but a desire to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime, and the extent to which there was wholesale reliance on uncorroborated information from a single source. Other hon. Members have added to those questions.
	The charge has been made that Parliament and Ministers have been misled, and there can be no doubt that we have not received sufficient answers to the questions raised today. Many of the issues go to the heart of government. The Government assert their case passionately and often raise issues that are not specifically relevant to the questions asked today. They have defended their case vigorously and will no doubt do so again during any inquiry.
	The fact that the Government have started to raise questions of their own during the past couple of days is crucially important. They have questioned the loyalty of certain elements of the security services by calling them rogue elements. Some of that was done on the record but other people, who were not attributed, talked to The Times about score settling. As my right hon. and learned Friend said earlier, that echoes fears expressed under the Labour Government in the 1970s. There are fundamental questions that need answers and it is vital to hold an inquiry to find out those answers.
	My right hon. and learned Friend discussed the different types of inquiry that might be held. The Government are exercised by the form of the inquiry suggested in the motion and we must hope that they now see the sense of such an inquiry. Their amendment mentions their willingness to participate in an inquiry conducted by the Intelligence and Security Committee and I emphasise again that we do not question that Committee's independence of mind or integrity.
	Perhaps the Minister will respond to one specific point raised by the Prime Minister's comments today. The Prime Minister mentioned that the Joint Intelligence Committee assessments would be made available to the ISC. Will the information on which those assessments are based also be made available to the Committee?
	An inquiry could take a number of forms. Frankly, what matters is that the serious issues raised today by Members on both sides of the House, including Ministers, are tackled and resolved. We are not the only ones asking questions, however. People all over the country are asking them, whether or not they supported the war in the first place. We owe it to them to get the answers. We are pleased that the Conservatives will join us in the Lobby. We hope that Labour Members will do the same. 4.40 pm

Denis MacShane: We have had an excellent debate in which we heard good speeches by my hon. Friends the Members for Western Isles (Mr. MacDonald) and for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes). I am sorry that my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) was not in the Chamber to hear those. Nothing new has been adduced in this debate that was not placed before the House over the past six months. On 18 March my right hon. Friend voted in favour of armed action, and if she now says that she was deceived and duped by the Prime Minister, I do not understand why she remained in the Cabinet during the long months since the dispute started.
	I agree with the hon. Member for Reigate (Mr. Blunt), who referred to the Prime Minister's total credibility. I hope that he will not join the Liberal Democrats in the Lobby. In the Prime Minister's speech in September when the document

Crispin Blunt: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Denis MacShane: No, we have little time left.
	The document is to be the subject of a public inquiry

Crispin Blunt: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am concerned that the Minister has used my words selectively. I clearly commented on credibility on that issue alone

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is seeking to prolong the debate, not to raise a point of order with the Chair.

Denis MacShane: The hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Sir Patrick Cormack) said that the Prime Minister has acted with integrity and that he will join the Government in what I call the right Lobby tonight.
	I welcome the fact that we have debated Iraq today and that our Parliament has debated and voted on the matter consistently. No other Parliament, congress or national assembly has debated the subject so openly and publicly. I welcome the announcement that one of our great Committees of the House, and possibly a second, will investigate the matters under consideration and report to Parliament.
	I wish that the House had been sitting last week so that we could have dealt with those newspaper reports, which said much more about the nature of journalism than they did about the facts. Who could not enjoy this morning's wonderful discourse between Mr. John Humphrys and the Leader of the House? Mr. Humphrys was a guest on the Leader of the House programme and extracted from him the remarkable confession that Mr. Humphrys had talked to sources in our intelligence services who had views that they wanted to express. So I hope that tomorrow Mr. Humphrys will interview himself about those sources and obtain more details.
	We also had the delicious story in my favourite paper, The Guardian, alleging that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary had been in the Waldorf Astoria in New York to have conversations with Secretary of State Colin Powell. The story was specific. Its reporter alleged that the secret meetinghow journalists love the words secret meetinghad been on 4 February this year, but that day meant something to me because I was with the Foreign Secretary in Le Touquet to meet Dominique de Villepin and President Chirac. Now, I adore the travel pages in The Guardian, but New York is in America and Le Touquet is in France.
	In the short time left to me, I have had a chance to correct the distortions, half truths and the unattributed and unsourced allegations that have filled our newspapers and media in recent days.
	We might have had a serious debate on the wider issues of Iraq. We might have had a debate on the fact that Chancellor Schrder and President Chirac, who did not support the line of the Prime Minister and President Bush, said in Evian at the weekend that the issue of weapons of mass destruction remained of high importance on the international agenda. Instead, we have had speeches from the Liberal Democrats designed not to place the House of Commons at the heart of policy debate on the future of the region and what we need to do to counter weapons of mass destruction, but rather to use the Commons for petty political point-scoring that is an insult to the people of Iraq, who have been liberated from the tyranny, terror and torture of Saddam Hussein.
	Not a word of thanks from the Liberal Democrats to our brave soldiers and airmen. Not a word of praise for our friends in Europein Poland and Spain, in Copenhagen and Praguewho have offered political and military support to the cause, first, of freeing Iraq, and today of helping to assure it security. No, this has been the Liberal Democrats bringing the House of Commons down to their level of opportunistic politics. Of course, they were joined by that new member of the Liberal Democrat party, the shadow Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Devizes (Mr. Ancram), who called for an open public judicial tribunal to sit for months, if not years, investigating every aspect of our security services in public. I can think of no more irresponsible suggestion to make at this time, when we need our intelligence services to get on with the high duties that we expect of them.
	We would expect such opportunism from the Liberal Democrats. The Liberal Democrat magazine, Liberator, stated in March 2003:
	If the party can keep up its criticism of Blair over Iraq it has been potentially handed a way to harness all the other resentments brewing against Labour. This is the sort of chance that comes rarely.
	There we have it.
	Three main charges were made against the Prime Ministerfirst, that there was always a programme for war; secondly, that the quotations from President Chirac were in some way misused; and thirdly, that the report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was doctored to include a reference to 45 minutes. From the time the crisis broke out, it was clear that the Prime Minister and the President of the United States sought to take it to the United Nations, but not at the price of leaving Saddam Hussein permanently in power in defiance of the international community.
	President Bush's predecessor, President Clinton, authorised the use of force, along with Britain and other allies but without any authorisation from the United Nations, to bomb Belgrade and bring an end to the tyranny and terror of Milosevic. Many hon. Members opposed that conflict at the time, but then the Liberal Democrats were led by Paddy Ashdown, a man who has never appeared on, Have I Got News for You, but who knew that fighting tyranny with or without a UN resolution was not something from which to flinch.
	The second charge is that the Government mistranslated what President Chirac said in the week when British diplomats were trying in New York to fashion a resolution that could have provided a final chance for Saddam Hussein to avoid the conflict. I have the full text of what President Chirac said in his television interview. His position was consistent. He did not want to authorise armed action. I have not joined in the chorus of those denouncing him, nor do I challenge the sincerity of the positions of those in France and Germany and in my own country who were opposed to the conflict.
	President Chirac said on Monday 10 March:
	My position is that whatever the circumstances France will vote No.
	He was pressed again and again by the interviewers. He was asked whether using the veto would be an unprecedented act against the United States. He dismissed that, but no one reading the full transcript can be in any doubt that President Chirac made it clear that he would veto the efforts being made by British diplomats.
	Finally, we have the charge that the dossier on Iraq entitled Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction was manipulated in some way. The reference to a 45-minute warning was in the Joint Intelligence Committee report sent to Downing street. The allegation made by the BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan that the 45-minute warning period was added to spice up the report was incorrect. The relevant sentence of the report says that Iraq has
	military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons against its own Shia population. Some of these weapons are deployable within 45 minutes of an order to use them.
	That intelligence will come as no surprise to the people of Halabja. They did not have a 45-minute warning, or even a four-minute warning, when Saddam used these weapons to kill 5,000 of them. What the JIC reported on was the suffering that the people of Iraq already knew.
	What is new is that anyone can question the clear record set out in the report of Saddam's past practice and future intentions. The report argues:
	The threat from Iraq does not depend solely on the capabilities we have described. It arises also because of the violent and aggressive nature of Saddam Hussein's regime. His record of internal repression and external aggression gives rise to unique concerns about the threat he poses.
	That threat no longer exists. The men and women of Iraq, and especially the childrenthey died by the thousands when, for his own evil ends, he stole the money that could have saved their livesare now free.
	Building on that freedom will be hard. Two months after the end of Hitlerism in Germany there was nothing but chaos, corruption, poverty and considerable violence. The Nazis were in power for 13 years. Saddam's Ba'ath party was in power far longer. We should not forget that its ideology was based entirely on European nationalistic, fascist politics. Every day we discover new horrors: the mass graves of the 300,000 murdered by Saddam Hussein are the latest example of his use of holocaust techniques against fellow Muslims whom he wanted to exterminate.
	In the Balkans, four years after we got rid of Milosevic and despite the presence of scores of thousands of NATO soldiers, we still cannot lay our hands on Karadzic and Mladic, the butchers of Srebrenica. In Northern Ireland, we still cannot find the arms caches of the terrorists. But we will, and we will show to the world that for the most part the United Nations, the JIC and other bodies were right to draw attention to concerns about weapons in Iraq, and we were right to join our allies to rid the world of Saddam and his evil regime.
	I am proud to be a member of a Government who have vanquished tyranny. I welcome the investigations that different Committees of the House will now undertake. I believe that the leadership shown by the House as it debated and decided that action should be taken was fully justified. I invite the Liberal Democrats even now to withdraw their opportunistic motion. They will get their headline in the papers tomorrow, but our intelligence services will continue to watch, guard and warn our nation of today's and tomorrow's dangers, and I hope that when the next threat arises the House will not flinch from doing its duty.

Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:
	The House divided: Ayes 203, Noes 301.

Question accordingly negatived.
	Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.
	Mr. Deputy Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
	Resolved,
	That this House believes that the Intelligence and Security Committee established by Parliament is the appropriate body to carry out any inquiry into intelligence relating to Iraq; and notes in relation to Iraq's disarmament obligations the terms of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1483.

Pensions

Mr. Deputy Speaker: We now come to the debate on pensions. I should like to inform the House that Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister. May I also remind the House that there is an eight-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches in this debate?

Steve Webb: I beg to move,
	That this House condemns the Government's extensive delay in appointing a new Minister for Pensions at a time of pensions crisis; further condemns the Government for pursuing a strategy of mass means testing of pensioners; notes that the Department for Work and Pensions will have satisfied its PSA target even if a million pensioners are still missing out on their entitlement to Pension Credit by 2006; further notes that the Pension Credit will be run on a computer system described by the previous Secretary of State as 'very decrepit'; believes that the Pensions Green Paper was an inadequate response to a range of pensions problems, including the large number of people of working age who are facing financial insecurity in retirement, particularly many women; further notes the continued insecurity of many members of defined benefit pension schemes and the lack of protection for working age scheme members when schemes are wound up; calls on the Government to address these issues as a matter of urgency; and further calls on the Government urgently to simplify the state pension system and to ensure that the basic state pension provides a firm foundation for income in retirement, with particular reference to the needs of older pensioners.
	There are those who might feel that our motion today in unduly critical of the Government. Therefore, in a constructive spiritthe way in which we always approach these issuesI want to offer an olive branch to the Government, and to say that, given that the Prime Minister has clearly been seeking unsuccessfully for the last eight weeks to find a suitable candidate for Minister for Pensions, I am today prepared to step into the breach. I should say that I have not yet cleared that with my right hon. Friend the Member for Ross, Skye and Inverness, West (Mr. Kennedy), but we shall have negotiations later on.

Charles Kennedy: You have my blessing.

Steve Webb: Someone needs to get a grip on pensions. The word crisis appears in the motion for almost every Opposition day debate, but in few cases can there be a better fit than the pensions crisis. The House need not take my word for this. The chairman of the occupational pensions advisory servicean august bodyMalcolm McLean OBE said only last month:
	Although the Government...seem to want to play it down, there is from my and an OPAS perspective, something of a crisis in pensions at the moment.
	He continues with a whole litany, of which this is an excerpt:
	The pensions system we have is ridiculously complicated
	it is certainly that
	and not easily understood by the majority of the population. Trust in pensions has been eroded| employers are closing down good . . . schemes . . . and replacing them with often inferior . . . schemes . . . Is it any wonder, therefore, that some people might be starting to lose heart?
	That is the backdrop for this debateand it makes it all the more lamentable that the Government have failed, in eight weeks, to appoint a Minister to take responsibility for pensions.

John Redwood: Does the absence of any reference in the motion to the massive tax on pensions, along with the fact that the hon. Gentleman wants to be Pensions Minister in this miserable Governmenthe is backed in that aim by his leader, who obviously wants to remove him from his own shadow Administrationconstitute proof that the Liberal Democrats support the idea of taxing pension funds to death?

Steve Webb: I am intrigued by the suggestion that I have gone native before I have gone over.
	If the right hon. Gentleman checks the record I think he will find that both his party and mine voted against the dividend tax credit and have opposed it. I think he will also find that neither his manifesto nor mine pledged to find the 5 billion to replace it. I feltunlike certain partiesthat to oppose something but not to say that we would undo it would not be helpful to this debate.
	A Green Paper on pensions was published shortly before Christmas. It assumed that the state pension scheme was sorted out, and tried to bolt on to it a new private pension system. That is like trying to fit together two pieces from different jigsaw puzzles: no matter how hard you try, without the right basis, a fit will never be possible. The problem is that it is not just the private pension regime that is flawed; the state pension regime is fundamentally flawed.
	The basic state pension is woefully inadequate. Its value is just three quarters of the level of the means test. Who would have thought that the basic pension described by the Government as the foundation of income in old age would be allowed to sink so low? No one would accept a building constructed on such an insecure foundation.
	Women are hit particularly hard. A typical man with a basic pension under the state earnings-related pension scheme receives 92, while a typical woman receives 66. One might imagine that this is some relic of previous generations, but in fact the gap has not closed one jot in a decade. Successive Governments have failed to address trends that are long-term features of the pension system. The Green Paper contains a whole chapter on the position of women and a raft of descriptions of the problem, but the Government have not advanced one practical solution.
	Things need not be like this. The basic pension could be the foundation of income in old age, if the Department for Work and Pensions took a lead from the Chancellor. As I often say, the Chancellor has got it exactly right. He has said that poor pensioners tend to be old pensioners, and he gives free television licences not to all pensioners but to the over-75s. In his most recent Budget, deciding that he wanted to help poor pensioners, what did he do? Did he put extra money into the means test? No, he increased the winter fuel payment. For whom? For the over-80s.
	Why is it that, although the Chancellor has recognised that old pensioners are poor and is helping them, whenever we say as much to the Department for Work and Pensions it says, That wouldn't be well targeted. They cannot both be right. Perhaps the Minister will tell us whether she disagrees with the Chancellor.
	Can Members imagine how much could have been spent on pensions for the over-75s if the money going into the mass means test of pension credit had been devoted to them? According to a written answer, had the Government adopted the pensions rather than the mass means-testing route, not just a few pence, not just a few pounds, but 19 a week could have been spent on those pensions for the over-75s. It is the pensions route that we would have adopted, and that, I believe, is what pensioners want: a decent pension, not a mass means test.
	It is not just the basic pension that is inadequate. The basic pension was so useless that the Government invented a second pension, which is useless as well. It is called, imaginatively, the state second pension, and it takes 40 years to be completely useless, because the first people to accrue a full pension under it have just left university. If they work for 40 years and receive the basic pension and the state second pension at the full rate, they will be so poor that they will need a means test. That is how good the state second pension really is. It takes 40 years to build up to an amount of money that does not lift people above the poverty line. Can that be the ambition of the Government for generations to come?
	Not only do we have a useless basic pension and a useless second pension, but the Government have invented a third, called the pension credit, which is due to be introduced in October to make up for the fact that the first two are useless. However, that will be even worse.
	The Government have had some problems with their credits recently. The computers have not worked, but help is at hand. The new pension credit scheme will be introduced not on a new computerso we can relaxbut on the existing computer. The only problem is that the previous Secretary of State described, in a rather appropriate way given the nature of the benefit, the computer that will be used in October as very decrepit. If that does not fill hon. Members' hearts with horror in the light of the credit system, I do not know what will. That computer will have to bear the burden of millions of pension credit payments. I suggest to hon. Members that they get those hotline numbers readythey will be needing them.
	It is not just administrative chaos that we shall face. The Public Accounts Committee has said:
	we have repeatedly expressed concerns about the Department's computer systems and the impact of their weakness on customer service.
	This is not techie stuff. It is about real people who need real money and who may not get it because the computer is too old to do the job properly.
	The system is not merely going to be run on a dodgy old computer, it is also extraordinarily complex. The House will be awareI apologise for going over ground with which hon. Members will be familiarthat the new pension credit has two components: a guarantee credit and a savings credit. Obviously, pensioners will be looking at that and calculating their entitlement to savings credit, but they will need to be aware of the full complexity of it. So here we go!
	The savings credit is available to pensioners, but not to women aged 60 to 64; although they are pensioners, they can get the guarantee credit but not the savings credit. Therefore, there are two bits to the scheme: one applies to some pensioners but not all. The reward one gets for saving is 60p in the pound for any private pension above the basic pension level but below the income support levelexcept that that will be called the guarantee credit level, except that, if one does not have a full basic pension, part of one's private pension has to fill up to the basic pension before the 60p in the pound award cuts in, and above income support levels the 40p in the pound taper cuts in until one ends up with zero. [Hon. Members: Encore.] That was the shortened version. When hon. Members read the transcript, they will find that that was a succinct summary of how the system will work.
	The serious point is: who will claim the thing? Who will know, if they have not previously been entitled, that they may be entitled? We can relax, because the Government will write to everyone. The Government will write to all pensioners not currently on income supportexcept that, because the system is being introduced in October they do not have time to write to everyone, so they will write to one in five pensioners randomly. Presumably, one pensioner will have the letter, and they may understand it and apply. The next-door neighbour, I assume, unless particular villages will get one and the next village will not, will not have the letter, so they will not hear of the thing, unless they read the newspapers.
	However, it is all right because the system is being introduced in October and people have a year to claim. If the House reflects on that for a moment, hon. Members will realise that people have a whole year to claim the thing because it is so complicated the Government do not think they can possibly get everyone to claim it on the day they are entitled to it. This is money for poor people, yet the Government have to give them a year to claim it because they know they cannot possibly deliver it on time. What are those relatively poor and needy pensioners who are the priority for the Government supposed to do for the year while they wait for their letter, because the letters may not be delivered until next June? That is the system on which the Government pin the centrepiece of their attack on pensioner poverty.
	The Department for Work and Pensions has been set a target. It has one of those public service agreements, and a sort of report card. I do not know who it hands it in to and I do not know what happens if it fails. I do not know whether the Government will say, We will not let you pay any pensions this week because you have failed. It will just carry on, I think. Perhaps the Government will not appoint a Minister for Pensions, and will make the other Ministers do the work.
	If the Department fails its public service agreements, what happens? It has been set an objective. By 2006, 3 million pensioner households have to get the pension credit. That sounds pretty good. By 2004, the Government think that 2.8 million could have it. That does not sound too bad but they think that 3.8 million are entitled, so the Government will get a tick in the box, a Well done and a pat on the head from someone for missing 1 million pensioners. That will be a success. That is the extent of the Government's ambition for their strategy.
	When we point that out to the Government, they say, Yes, but you don't want to target poor pensioners. Well, excuse me, but who are these 1 million people who are entitled to the MIG or the savings credit? Are they the rich? The poor will miss out because the Government have designed a scheme so complicated that many people will not claimbut everybody claims their pension.

Andrew Selous: Like all of us, I am listening to the hon. Gentleman's speech with a great deal of interest. Does he agree that it is very worrying that the take-up levels for the MIG, which were sneaked out in an answer on the last day before the Whitsun recess, show that there has been no improvement in take-up over income support levels? So the Government's claims that things are going to get better are not borne out by last year's facts.

Steve Webb: The hon. Gentleman is right. There is a myth that circulates in government, and as with many such myths, some of those who believe them are decent peoplethey are simply misguided. The point is that such non-take-up levels are inherent in mass means-testing. Simply providing a few more leaflets, a few more phone calls or a few more newspaper adverts will not sort the problem out. Fiendishly complicated schemes that are constantly changing and do not meet people's existing needs will always have the property to which the hon. Gentleman refers.

Oliver Heald: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the situation is getting worse? Some 600,000 did not claim what they were entitled to in 1997. That figure has risen to 700,000, and this year it is predicted that it will rise to 1.6 million. Even by 2006, the figure will still be 1 million. Is that not the scale of the problem?

Steve Webb: The hon. Gentleman is right to point out that the scale of the problem is simply vast. The fact that 1 million people who are by definition poorer pensioners are not getting what they are entitled to cannot be acceptable.
	It is not just the state scheme thatthrough an inadequate basic pension, a useless second pension and hopeless means-testing to top up the two worthless pensionsis failing. The private sector pension regime is also failing.

Kevin Brennan: Is it not disingenuous to describe the pension credit as a means-tested scheme, thereby associating it with schemes from the 1930s, for example, given that any test of resources will not have to be made weekly, as the hon. Gentleman knows? Will he tell the House how often any assessment will have to take place?

Steve Webb: The key question is how the system is perceived by those for whom it is designed. If pensioners were given a choice between a system in which they have to give all the information about their incomes and personal circumstances and report substantive changes in those circumstances, and a simple system involving a higher basic pension for older pensioners, I have no doubt which they would prefer.

Maria Eagle: Given that the hon. Gentleman is reluctant to answer the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan), I shall remind him that the answer is once every five years.

Steve Webb: I think the Minister will find that although that is the theory, the practice will be very different. For example, let us suppose that a pensioner couple are in receipt of the pension credit and one of them dies. Will the surviving partner have to wait for five years for reassessment? No, they will pick up the phone and report the change. Let me put another point to the Minister. If such people are to be reassessed only every five years, the Department will have to make an assumption about what is happening to their income during each of those five years. Let us consider the example of someone who has a company pension. Will the Department assume that that pension goes up in line with inflation each year? If the Department does, as I assume it will, someone who has a company pension that is not uprated in line with inflation will not get enough benefit. Will they have to ring the Departmentassuming that they have worked out what is happeningand say, You're not paying me enough because you haven't compensated me for the non-indexation of my company pension? This is the new streamlined system that we are looking forward to. I hope that the Minister will clarify this question, because remarkably, I have yet to receive a straight answer to it.
	As I said, it is not just the state system that needs attention; the private sector needs urgent

Andrew Love: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Steve Webb: I had better not, as there is an eight-minute limit on all contributions other than those from Front Benchers. I hope the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.
	The Government were going to ride to the rescue of the private sector with the wonderful stakeholder pension, which was going to reach the parts that other pension schemes cannot reach. What has happened? Stakeholder sales are down by 22 per cent. on the previous year. Half of all sales in the first quarter of this year were not new; they were money being shuffled from one pot into another. The Minister doubtless has some wonderful figures on the billions going in, but what she may not mention is that a lot of it was already in pension schemes; it is simply under a different label. Nine out of 10 stakeholder schemes designated by employers have no money in them. I am not an expert on pensions, but I should have thought that having money in a pension scheme was a prerequisite of a good scheme, on the whole.
	The Government are very fond of quoting the Association of British Insurers on this issue. The ABI says that stakeholder pensions
	are not getting to the people who need them most. About half of all sales were transfers . . . the rest were sold to wealthier people.
	Those whom the ABI calls wealthier people are seriously wealthier people.
	This does not apply to stakeholder pensions alone: the bedrock of pension provision has been the final salary company pension. Final salary schemes are disappearing so fast that there may be none left by the time the Government appoint a pensions Minister. Who knows? Nearly half of all companies offering a final salary scheme closed it to new members last year, and many more are thinking about doing so next year.
	Many people have real anxieties about the threat to their company pensions. They have read stories in the papers, admittedly quite limited, about companies going bankrupt without there being enough money in the pension scheme to pay all the pensions. The current combined pension deficit of the top 100 schemes is 65 billion, which makes us enormously vulnerable. If one of those large firms were to go to the wall, hundreds of thousands of people could find the pensions that they have worked and saved for wiped outand they could do nothing about it. That is why the issue is so urgent, and why the Government's delay is so culpable. People are really anxious, and the Government have failed to deliver.

David Drew: The hon. Gentleman makes a compelling argument. The problem with the closure of final salary schemes and with what is happening in the public sector is often not talked aboutthe legacy of early retirement. The Conservative party's answer was always to get people off the books and force themI use the term intentionallyinto early retirement. We now have to pick up the pieces from that legacy. If people had worked to the normal retirement age, many of the problems in the public and private sector would not have come home to roost. Does the hon. Gentleman agree?

Steve Webb: The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight that as one of several factors that have contributed to the deficits, including the plunging stock market, greater longevity and the 5 billion change to advance corporation tax. A raft of factors has affected the deficit, of which the hon. Gentleman's point is certainly one. The critical point is that with substantial deficits, if a scheme goes belly up, the retired members get the first crack and the people who have worked all their lives in the schemeand are perhaps within a year of retirement agereceive next to nothing.
	Pensions issues are part of a major debate and I shall make a couple of brief points. We must ensure that people are better protected. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) proposes to introduce a Bill that attempts to achieve that. There are no easy gains. If the pot of money is inadequate, giving more to one group means giving less to another. I have spoken to retired occupational pensioners who are unsurprisingly nervous about the whole agenda. We need some way of balancing the elements more fairly than we do now, which might require some cap on the entitlements of retired pensioners, some multiple for pension protection and more for those who are nearly at pension age and, frankly, cannot do anything about the problem. That is the avenue down which we should be going, and although the Government may have some sympathy with that proposition, they have made no proposals. They have to get on with it.
	It has been suggested in the press recently that the Government want to introduce insurance for company pensions. That is an interesting idea, to which we should respond constructively. The idea is that, just as one insures a car against an accident, one insures a company pension in case the company goes bankrupt. The problem is that the Government have, hitherto, refused to say that they would stand behind such a scheme. Unless they do, we could end up with the insurance scheme going bankrupt as well. That would be the cruellest irony of all: to charge people insurance on their pensions, and then, when the company goes bankrupt, not to pay them because the insurance company cannot cope with the scale of the problem.

Frank Field: If and when the Government establish such an insurance schemeI hope that it will be soonand if the scheme incorporates borrowing powers from the Treasury, there is no reason why it would go under. The unemployment insurance scheme of the 1930s never went under. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one good use of the unclaimed, as opposed to the orphan, assets would be to support people who have already lost or partially lost their pensions? The sum of more than 13 billion could be used to make good their pension losses.

Steve Webb: As ever, the right hon. Gentleman makes a creative contribution to the debate, which should help to put it at the top of the agenda. There was obviously a big if in his questiona scheme would work only if it had borrowing rights against the Treasury. However, the Treasury has hitherto said, in writing, that it will not stand behind such a scheme. Ministerial spokespersons have been quoted in the press recently as saying that that is central to their plans. I hope that instead of reading that in the press we will hear it from the Minister. Where has the Department got to, and will the Treasury stand behind such a scheme? If so, we would look at it constructively. If not, it could be a delusion.

John Bercow: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Steve Webb: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, but I am about to complete my remarks.
	We have only scraped the surface of the vast array of pension problems today, but we wanted to put the issue on the agenda. In my absence, my hon. Friends demanded that we include it as one of our topics today, because it affects so many of our constituents. Some 10 million retired pensioners, and 20 million workers, feel increasingly insecure about their pensions. It is time that the issue was top not only of the Liberal Democrats' agenda, but of the Government's agenda.

Maria Eagle: I beg to move, To leave out from House to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
	recognises that the UK has the largest stock of private pension saving in Europe and a tradition of pension partnership at the workplace which leaves it well placed to rise to the challenge of longer lives; welcomes the conclusion of the Work and Pensions Committee that the UK pensions system is basically sound; further recognises that there are pressures on pension systems at the moment and supports the Government's proposals, as outlined in the recent Green Paper, to renew the UK pensions partnership, to introduce further measures to bolster the UK system which better focus regulation on contemporary anxieties, and to increase security without increasing the overall costs of running pensions; strongly endorses the Work and Pensions Committee's judgement that current policies have been successful in reducing pensioner poverty; further recognises that this is of particular benefit to women; welcomes the state second pension which will provide lower earners, disabled people and carers, some 18 million people most of whom are women, with a better pension; believes that good pensions policy must be built on a foundation of the basic state pension, which has increased in real terms for three years in a row; and looks forward to the Pension Credit reform in October which will ensure that those with modest savings are properly rewarded for the first time.
	I very much welcome the opportunity that today's debate gives the House to discuss pensions. We cannot discuss the issue too oftenI agree with the hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb) about that. It is an issue of vital concern to all our constituents of all ages.

Oliver Heald: So why have we not had a Government debate on pensions for three years?

Maria Eagle: We have had many statements, new legislation, Opposition debates and many debates in Committee on the issue. No doubt we will have more as this Parliament progresses.
	I wish very gently to take issue with some of the language used by the hon. Member for Northavon. I understand that in some cases he was telling jokes, but I take issue with the tone of his remarks, of the motion and of his press release. The all-party Work and Pensions Committee recently had this to say in its serious report on the future of UK pensions:
	We agree that the use of the term crisis is unhelpful. Whilst not wishing to minimise the real anxieties about certain aspects of state and private provision, we feel that it is important to recognise that the system of pension provision in the UK as a whole is basically sound.
	I very much agree with that conclusion.

Paul Goodman: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way because it allows me to put on the record the fact that my hon. Friends the Members for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Mitchell) and for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) and I voted for an amendment to that reportwhich was not agreedto conclude that there is a pension crisis.

Maria Eagle: That is an interesting point, and I am glad that the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Mitchell) is in his place. He often takes an interest in such debates and I may refer to some of his previous activities later.
	I do not assert that there are no challenges or problems facing pension provision in this country. That would be nonsense. Indeed, we would hardly have just conducted the biggest and most widespread consultation on the future of occupational pensions in 30 years if that were the case. But we work from the premise, as the Committee says, that the system is basically sound and must be made to work better and more effectively. So the Green Paper does not advocate starting with a blank sheet of paper and designing a system from scratch that is fundamentally different from the one we have now. Nor, to my knowledge, do Opposition parties suggest that we should do any such thing.
	I make a plea to hon. Members to deal calmly and sensibly with the challenges that we face, so that we can get our pensions framework in a fit state to ensure stability in the future. That is what is needed above all. Pensions are a long-term business and the policy changes that we introduce now must be capable of lasting for years, not just satisfying the headline writers tomorrow, as the press releases from the hon. Member for Northavon are designed to do. Headlines only last for a day. The pension framework we choose must last for decades if it is to do its job.
	When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions made his statement to the House on the Green Paper, he identified three challenges that we have faced since coming to office in 1997: affordability, pensioner poverty and expectations. Rising longevity compounded by a trend towards early retirement has challenged the affordability of pension systems across the industrialised world.
	However, the UK is in a stronger position to meet this demographic challenge than most other developed countries, not only because our dependency ratio is expected to increase by half as much as the European average, but because our system is much more affordable and we are concentrating on making it fairer.
	Our commitment to alleviating pensioner poverty is vital, given the legacy that we inherited. The 18 Tory years that preceded this Government saw a vast widening in income disparity between the wealthiest and poorest of our pensioners. The income of the bottom fifth of pensioners in those years rose by 34 per cent., but that of the top fifth by 80 per cent. One in three of our pensioner populationthat is, 3.5 million peoplewere living in poverty during those years.
	That was not accidental, but the result of policy choices. The previous Tory Government cut the value of the basic state pension by 20 a week in real terms, slashed the value of SERPS not once but twice, and perpetrated the horrors of pension mis-sellinga phrase that is not mine but which was used by the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) in a recent speech. It is an apt phrase for a fiasco that cost 13.5 billion, which still haunts the industry's reputation today. I therefore do not apologise for this Government targeting pensioner poverty. To accept the income distribution among pensioners left to us by the Opposition would have been absolutely wrong.
	The other challenge may be characterised as the rising expectations of our citizens, as they reach an ever longer and healthier retirement, to continue with the lifestyles that they have forged. The Green Paper highlighted that perhaps three million such people are not saving enough for their retirement, and that many millions more may not be saving enough to provide the pensions that they want. Additionally, it drew attention to the pressure facing occupational schemes and the much-publicised spate of closures and changes in provision in the private pension sector.
	During our Green Paper consultation, we held 35 events. About 2,000 people took part in them, and we have received more than 800 written responses. We are grateful to all the many groups who have shown the interest and taken the time to contribute. They include unions, employers, members of the public, actuary and consultancy firms, voluntary and consumer groups, the occasional political party think-tanks, financial institutions and representatives of industry bodies. All have played their part in helping us to build the long-term solutions that will enable people to work longer and save more for a prosperous retirement.

David Taylor: Will my hon. Friend say whether the list of respondents to the Green Paper included the author for a group called No Turning Back who said in 1993 that basic state pension provision should be a function of the private sector? The author was one Iain Duncan Smithwhatever became of him, and of that policy?

Maria Eagle: I am the wrong person to ask about what became of the policy. However, I shall ask the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald), who will speak for the Opposition, a question or two about that. To my knowledge, the No Turning Backgroup did not respond, although I stand to be corrected, given the volume of responses that we have received. If I am incorrect about that, I shall inform the House.

Oliver Heald: I am not personally a member of the No Turning Back group, but does the Minister agree that the gap between rich and poor pensioners has widened since 1997? The Pensions Policy Institute is an independent body, and it has produced a document called The Pensions Landscape that is highly thought of. On page 14, it states that the gap between rich and poor pensioners has widened: the income of the bottom 20 per cent. of single pensioners as a percentage of national average earnings is exactly the same now as in 1997, but the income of pensioners at the top of the scale has grown and the gap has therefore widened. Does the Minister accept that analysis?

Maria Eagle: As I have said, we are seeking to alleviate pensioner poverty. I do not agree that no progress has been made, as there has been a fall of 60 per cent. in absolute poverty among pensionersnot a claim that the Conservative party could have made when it was in power.
	The House will want to know when the response to the Green Paper will be published. The best answer that I can give is that it will be published shortly. We will shortly come forward with our response. I hope that hon. Members appreciate the restrictions that exist on these matters. One other word might give a cluewe will respond soon.
	The hon. Member for Northavon talked about pensioner poverty. Our first priority when we came to office in 1997 was to tackle pensioner poverty. We have done so by targeting increasing resources on pensioners and giving the poorest the most. As a result, pensioner households are, on average, 1,250 better off in real terms than they were in 1997, and the poorest third of pensioners are 1,600 a year better off. Absolute pensioner poverty is down by 60 per cent. We will spend an extra 8 billion a year on pensioners as a result of those measures.

Annabelle Ewing: The Minister will be aware, because I have repeatedly made the point in previous exchanges, that after six years of Labour Government, one in four pensioners in Scotland still live in poverty. Is the Minister happy with that record?

Maria Eagle: There is more to do. I am the first to accept that, but we are making progress, and we intend to make more. The pension credit is one way in which we shall do so.
	The Select Committee report, which I have already commended, said:
	We commend the Government on their commitment to tackle pensioner poverty and their achievement in reducing it on 3 of the 4 measures in the Annual Report but believe that there are still too many pensioner households in poverty and call on the Government to continue to increase their income in relative and absolute terms.
	That point is similar to that made by the hon. Lady. We are committed to doing that, but the policy of both the Liberal Democrats and the Tories is to end the targeting of help on the poorest. Indeed, they would remove help from the poorest and instead distribute it to all on the basis of age. That would redistribute resources from some of the poorest pensioners to the better off. The hon. Member for Northavon admitted as much in the upratings debate on 27 February, when he accepted that that would be the effect of his policy. I do not see how that would tackle poverty.
	In contrast to what the hon. Gentleman said about pension credit, it is our contention that it helps women and tackles poverty. We expect women to receive around two thirds of the spend on pension credit, and more than half the people entitled to it will be single women, two fifths of whom will be over 80. Pension credit helps women because, as the hon. Gentleman himself has said, many women pensioners are among the poorest. He must explain how removing an average of 400 a year from the poorest half of our pensioners will help to alleviate poverty and help women. He must explain how removing up to 1,000 a year from the poorest pensioners will do that. It simply will not.
	The hon. Gentleman had some fun talking about computers, which he suggested were decrepit. It is, of course, true that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport used that word; I do not dispute that. In due course, old and outdated systems will have to be replaced. The systems are old and outdated, but the fact is that they work. Every day, they pay the pensions and benefits of 3 million to 4 million people. The fact that they are old does not mean that they do not work. In due course, they will be replaced.
	In the hon. Gentleman's press release, and in his speech, he said that applying for pension credit is fiendishly complicated. I know that he is a professor, but for most people, picking up the phone is pretty easy. In terms of applying for social security entitlements, picking up the phone, giving a few details, then receiving through the post a completed form that one need only sign and return is not bad. No doubt one of the officials in a pension centre can assist the hon. Gentleman by explaining to him how easy it really is. It is not the fiendishly complicated system that he suggests.
	I accept that there is some complexity in the calculation of pension credit, but that is also true for the calculation of basic state pension. Fortunately for the poor of this country, we do not require people to do their own calculations before they are entitled to receive money. If we did, we would all, I suspect, be a lot poorer, although perhaps the hon. Gentleman would be a lot richer.

Steve Webb: rose

Maria Eagle: I do not want to take up all the time available for the debate.
	The hon. Gentleman also said that the Government planned to exclude 1 million people from pension credit. We want everyone to claim pension credit. The three million target is a figure for take-up in the first year, not a ceiling. We want everybody to claim.
	If the hon. Gentleman stopped characterising pension credit as a crude weekly means test and started telling pensioners how easy it was to claim, instead of suggesting to them that it creates stigma, I would be more willing to listen to his concerns about take-up. He is desperate for the policy to fail because he knows that it is popular. I believe that it will be a great success.
	The hon. Gentleman referred to letters and said that it would take us a year to ensure that everyone who claims receives their payment. The payments will be backdated, so we need to ensure the sensible administration of the system, otherwise he will complain that it is not working. We shall be writing to every pensioner. There will be an advertising campaign. People will get to know about the pension creditperhaps through their MP telling themand they will be able to claim. Those who claim up until October 2004 will have their entitlement and their payment backdated to the start of the pension credit.
	I do not want to take too much more of the House's time but I want to say a few words about the policies of the official Opposition. I was interested to note that, in a recent speech, the hon. Member for Havant launched a six-point plan for pensions. The speech was a bit of a mishmash but interesting none the less; it was notable both for its admissions and for its omissions. For example, the hon. Gentleman accepted that means-testing would remain: I am a realist, he said. However, the Opposition are committed to getting rid of the pension credit, so how will they make the calculations for the means test? Will they abolish the five-yearly assessment and the simple phone call needed to make a claim? Are they committed to a return to pound-for-pound withdrawal of benefit on a weekly means test? Will they bring back their 40-page form, asking elderly gentlemen if they are pregnant? Admittedly, they asked the elderly ladies as well. When they say that means-testing will remain, are those their commitments?
	As for the omissions, the Opposition should really have launched an eight-point plan. Two of their most important policies are not even mentioned. We know, for example, that the Opposition plan to privatise the basic state pension. Lately, they have gone quiet about that plan, but the letter from the hon. Member for Havant to the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield makes it clear. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman is in the Chamber. The letter states:
	The vision of moving to a funded alternative to the basic state pension is a powerful and compelling one which you and I share.
	We have not heard much about that from the Opposition lately. In fact, as stock markets have fallen and we have read more headlines about the deficits in funded pensions, they have gone quieter and quieter about that plan, but it remains their policy.
	The other policy that dare not speak its name relates to the 20 per cent. across-the-board public expenditure cuts to which the hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Mr. Flight) is committed. He said:
	I have been digging through current spending, finding opportunities for cuts. It's too early to say how much but it could be up to 20 per cent.
	The Leader of the Opposition was said to be relaxed about that target. What will the right hon. Gentleman cut? What damage would a 20 per cent. cut across the board inflict on pension provision?
	Perhaps that is why the Opposition are committed to abolishing contracting out, as the hon. Member for Havant said in his interesting speech[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Luff) would stop chuntering, I might be able to conclude my remarks[Interruption.] Obviously, he cannot stop chuntering, so I shall continue.
	The Opposition seem to be committed to the abolition of contracting out, because they have to make some savings somewhere. However, that would represent an 11 billion raid on private pension funds. Perhaps the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire will be able to tell us whether his party has a policy commitment to get rid of contracting out.
	The rhetoric of the hon. Member for Northavon suggests that he wants to help women to achieve decent state and private pension provision, but his policy of abolishing pension credit and replacing it with age additions would penalise today's poorer women pensioners. He has admitted that.

Steve Webb: Will the hon. Lady give way?

Maria Eagle: I am coming to the close of my speech.
	The hon. Gentleman's policy of abolishing the state second pension would disadvantage today's working women who are carers or in low-paid jobs, who have broken work records or who are disabled. Currently, they are accruing a better second-tier unfunded state pension than SERPS ever offered them. His policy document admits that the state second pension is redistributive. His answer? Abolish it. I am forced to conclude that his rhetoric about helping women is hollow, because his policy prescriptions would do the opposite.
	Only the Labour party is committed to tackling pensioner poverty and ensuring the long-term future of occupational pension provision in this country by carrying forward the necessary reforms, building on what is good in our system. I commend the amendment to the House.

Oliver Heald: I thought the Minister was rather defensive on a number of issues, and well she might be. It is all very well to trot out the old Labour lie about 20 per cent. cuts, but what we want to cut is tuition fees. We want to cut the bureaucracy that Labour has introduced that means we now have more administrators than beds in the NHS. We want to cut pensioner poverty. We want to take action, not just speak words.
	You know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, it is a shocking thing that, with the pensions crisis that this country is facing at the moment, all we get from the Government is consultation. It is a consultation culture. We counted 38 consultations, but when we asked the Government how many consultations they had on pensions, they said they could not answer the question because of disproportionate costs. That shows what they are doing. They have this problem, which has emerged largely as a result of their own action. All they do is talk, talk, and have consultation after consultationa consultation culture and no action.
	As my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) rightly said, through the Chancellor's 5 billion a year pensions tax, first imposed in 1997, the Government have taken tens of billions of pounds from British pension funds and British pensioners. It is no wonder that since Labour came to power, the gap between the richest and poorest pensioners, as shown in independent evidence, has grown substantially. One has only to look at the crisis of Equitable Life to see the body blows that there have been to morale for pensioners and pension scheme members throughout the country.
	There is more to come. In the mid-1990s the Government used to criticise us because there were 600,000 people who did not claim the help to which they were entitled. Now it is 700,000 and, as the hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb) rightly pointed out, that is set to rise to a staggering 1 million in 2006.

Chris Pond: Would the hon. Gentleman recognise a simple point of mathematicsthat if more people are entitled, it is very possible that more are not claiming the amount to which they are entitled? Is it not the case that the party that he represents, when it was in government, ensured that as few as possible were entitled to as little as possible?

Oliver Heald: How sad it is for someone who campaigned for better circumstances to be so self-satisfied and complacent about this issue. How can a Labour Government seriously say that their target for 2006three years' timeis to be 300,000 worse in terms of take-up by the poorest pensioners in this country than we are today?

John Bercow: Given that the increased complexity of the Government's means-tested benefits system has meant that hundreds of thousands of elderly pensioners have not received their dues on time or have not received them at all, does my hon. Friend agree that the plight of those poor pensioners is thrown into stark relief by the fact that many Ministers whose Department's public service agreement targets have been missed have been promoted and many other Ministers whose Department's targets have been met have yet been sacked?

Oliver Heald: Yes; my hon. Friend makes an important point. And is it not surprising that the Department of Trade and Industry document about rewards for failure did not cover Government Ministers?
	It is pensioners and pension scheme members throughout the country who are being hardest hit by the Government's policies. One only has to think of the workers at Allied Steel and Wire, who are coming to London to march following the effective winding-up of their schemes, and those at Blyth and Blyth in Scotland, following the announcement last week, and those at 50 other companies, to see that action is needed to reform the law on the winding-up of pensions.
	We had a debate about that earlier this year but we have seen no detailed proposals. It has been left to the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), as usual, to come forward with constructive proposals that we can all support and debate.

Kevin Brennan: Will the hon. Gentleman remind the House who introduced the provisions under which pensioners from Allied Steel and Wire are not entitled to anything as a result of the company going bust?

Oliver Heald: It is correct that a Conservative Government introduced the measure in 1995 but the hon. Gentleman should be aware that the protection offered then to a 40-year-old working man if a company became insolvent was about 78 per cent. of his pension scheme entitlement and the protection for a 60-year-old working man was more than 95 per cent. Such levels of protection have collapsed because the Government have allowed the protection available under the Pensions Act 1995 to become deeply eroded.

Jim Cunningham: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Oliver Heald: I have only limited time.
	It is shocking that only the Opposition secure or propose debates on pensions issues. The Government have not initiated a substantial debate on pensions policy since 23 March 2000. There was a Minister with responsibility for pensions at that time: Lord Rooker, as he is now. In the debate, he explained how the proposals in the 1998 Green Paper on pensions set out a long-term reform programme for the next 50 years. As I said, yet another Green Paper has been published. It is time that the Under-Secretary said a little more than shortly or soon in response to questions on when we will have the debate on the Green Paper that was promised in Januarywe have not had a full-day debate after six months. Will the Minister assure us that the White Paper will be published before the summer recessshe does not have to tell us that it will be published next week?

Maria Eagle: Yes.

Oliver Heald: Well, we have made a bit of progress and I am very grateful for that.

Frank Field: This summer recess?

Oliver Heald: The right hon. Gentleman asks whether the White Paper will be published before this summer recess; let us hope it will be.
	The Prime Minister's website sets out a list of Ministers. It shows the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and says that he has overall responsibility for his Department. There is a marvellous picture of the Minister for Work and his duties are set out. There is then the heading Minister for Pensions. The name and photograph are blank but that Minister's responsibilities are outlined: basic pension; state earnings related pension; state second pension; stakeholder and private pensions; occupational pensions; the national insurance fund and national insurance recording system; pension credit; Pension Service; minimum income guarantee; and the inter-ministerial group for older people. One would have thought that those responsibilities were associated with an important job that could not remain vacant for two months. It is clear that the Prime Minister is happy to appoint the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney) as chairman of the Labour party for the party's internal convenience, but when it comes to the deep needs of pensioners in our country, he is prepared to leave things and let them ride. The Government think that it is more important to appoint new junior Ministers in the Home Office or other Departments than to appoint a Minister to deal with the important pensions matters that affect so many of the most vulnerable people in the country.

Tony Wright: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Oliver Heald: In a moment.
	I wish to press the Minister a little more on the Chancellor's plans to introduce a new index for inflation: the harmonised index of consumer prices, which is the European measure of inflation. He wants to introduce that because he wants harmonisation with Europe ahead of a possible decision that this country should enter economic and monetary unionthe euro.
	However, the harmonised index of consumer prices, known as HICP and pronounced hiccup, is a much lower measure of inflation than the retail prices index. One reason for that is that HICP does not include council tax, which has increased by 60 per cent. in recent years. Had HICP been applied since 1997, pension increases over the past six years would have been half those that took place under RPI. In paving the way for the euro, the Chancellor is possibly damaging the future income levels of pensioners who rely on the basic state pension.
	During Question Time on 14 April, the Under-Secretary was asked to give an assurance that the planned changes would not affect the annual uprating of pensions and other benefits. She tried to pass the buck to the Chancellor by saying:
	The Chancellor said that he was considering making such a change and, as he does so, he will no doubt examine carefully the impact that it might have on pensioners and upratings. The hon. Gentleman must make his representations to the Chancellor.[Official Report, 14 April 2003; Vol. 403, c. 604.]
	I never let such things go. The House will be pleased to know that about two hours later, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) took the point up in the Budget debate. He asked the Chancellor and the Chief Secretary about that at column 713 and both failed pointblank to say that pensioners would be no worse off if HICP were introduced.
	Will the Under-Secretary or the Minister make a categorical statement at the Dispatch Box about what will happen to the uprating of pensions and other benefits following the introduction of the HICP measure? It is not good enough for Ministers in a Department with responsibility for pensions to shuffle the problem off to the Chancellor who is not prepared to give an answer. Millions of pensioners deserve an answer.

Jim Cunningham: The hon. Gentleman mentions the Chancellor in relation to the measurement of inflation, the RPI. I remind the hon. Gentleman that his party took elements out of the RPI measurement when it was in government. The charge that he levels against the Government Front Bench applies equally to his Government because that change had the same effect on pensioners at the time.

Oliver Heald: I remember when the hon. Gentleman used to stand up for pensioners. If he thought there was a threat to the uprating of their benefits he would say that it should not happen. Does he agree that it is right for the Opposition vigorously to tackle a measure that would halve the rate of increases that pensioners receive? Does he agree that we are entitled to an answer from the Minister in the Department that is responsible for pensions?

Jim Cunningham: I notice that the hon. Gentleman has not answered my question and has waffled on about something else instead. I reassure him that if I am fortunate enough to catch Mr. Deputy Speaker's eye, I will champion the pensioners' cause. He should not worry about that.

Oliver Heald: I am grateful that the hon. Gentleman is able and willing to be part of the consensus in the Chamber that is trying to improve things for pensioners and pension scheme members in Britain, unlike the Government who just spend all their time talking about it.

Chris Pond: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Oliver Heald: The hon. Gentleman has already had a good go. I want to move on.
	The House will know that 375 hon. Members on both sides of the House, including 173 Labour Members, have signed early-day motion 572 which calls for a simpler system of application for a Post Office card account over the counter and fewer barriers to customers obtaining cash from the post office, as they do now. The Government's change to direct payment has been fraught with difficulties, including the revelation that thousands of keypads installed in post offices will have to be torn out or seriously amended. Those with disabilities such as blindness, autism, and Alzheimer's disease, will be severely affected by those changes.
	I have received hundreds of letters on that issue and I shall read brief extracts from just two of them. A pensioner from Suffolk wrote to me last month stating:
	I am 83 and have rheumatoid arthritis. I . . . keep active by collecting pension at the Post Office.
	The letter went on to say that the pensioner is
	very, very dubious if I would be able to slot my fingers on the right numbers. Meanwhile some bright spark can be watching and noting my numberso no secrecy (or security) even if I manage to mentally retain the number . . . I have no recollection of officially being advised of the alteration of payment, beyond grapevine and advertisements.
	Another pensioner wrote to me:
	I am registered blind. I recently went to my local post office and saw the key pad on the counter. I could not read the figures at all and would not have enough sight to use the key pad . . . I understand that a relative or friend can use the PIN number that is given, and draw the benefit on my behalf. I do not want this at all. I am very independent and value my privacy . . . This whole situation is a complete mess . . . We have enough difficulties with day to day living without having all this hassle.
	Those are the views of hundreds of thousands of pensioners throughout the country. What reassurance can the Minister, who is directly responsible for the situation, give that their views are being listened to? What will happen about the PIN pads? The Minister has admitted in answers to me that there needs to be an exceptions service, but will it be based in the post office? What will the method of payment be? What is the timetable for the introduction of this vital service? I have asked the Minister numerous questions about that, and the answers have not been clear or satisfactory on any of these key points.
	Some of the most vulnerable people in our country want to know how they are to receive their income in future. Will the Minister tell them? The Government's record on pensions is, unfortunately, one of which they cannot be proud. They are the Government of the pensions tax, the Government of the savings gap, and the Government of wind-up, HICP and poor take-up. They have failed millions of British pensioners, who are falling behind and will receive worse pensions than their parents for the first time in living memory. What is the Government's response? Is it just the consultation culture, rather than the action that is needed for true reform?
	We want a system where no one is held back but, equally importantly, no one is left behind. We want a fair deal on pensions for everyone. We intend to support the motion in the Lobby this evening. I invite Labour Members who believe in standing up for pensioners and pension scheme members to send a message to the Government that they must listen, in the interests of present and future pensioners, to the consensus that is emerging on the Opposition Benches and among some on the Labour Benches. What is needed is not more talk, but urgent action.
	Several hon. Members rose

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before I call the next Member to speak, I remind the House that there is now an 8-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches.

Jim Cunningham: I was interested in the tirade from the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald). I remember when he was in government, and the attitude of his Government. He made much of the fact that there had been a number of consultations between the Labour Government and various pensioners groupshe gave us the total numbers involved. That was in contrast to his Government, who never consulted anybody about anything and merely inflicted changes on people.
	Much more has to be done for pensioners, but we should not lose sight of the fact that the Government have done a considerable amount for them already. I remember the debate in the Chamber one Friday morning about the winter chill allowance. The hon. Gentleman and some of his hon. Friends sabotaged the argument, which resulted in a Minister going. From our point of view, he was an effective Minister in that area, despite being a Tory Minister. That individual happened to be on the receiving end because he was sympathetic to the idea of doing more for pensioners, but his hon. Friends were not so keen on that, so he ended up on the scrap heap of history.
	I also remember the debate about the 10 that used to be given to pensioners once a year as a handout. The Labour Government started to put that right by means of the winter chill allowance, which is worth about 200 a year. That is a positive step to help pensioners and alleviate pensioner poverty.
	Under the Tories, some local authorities granted free bus passes whereas others did not, and there were disparities. The Tory Government did nothing about that, but the present Government have taken a step in the right direction and at least pensioners now only pay half fare. In the west midlands, pensioners get free bus travel. A start has been made, but a lot more needs to be done.
	There is some concern about the Green Paper. I do not think that people want to work beyond a retirement age of 65. Obviously, some may want to work on, and it may be in the interests of the economy for them to do so, but by and large most people like to think that they will retire at 65.
	The pensions crisis began under the Tory Government. I worked in factories then, so I have first-hand knowledge. I was involved in the trade union movement when it encouraged people to stop in the state earnings-related pension scheme. When in government, the Conservative party encouraged people to go into private occupational pension schemes. It tends to be forgotten that those schemes were often introduced to offset a wage deal. We should not lose sight of the fact that the seeds of the present pensions crisis were sown under the Conservative Government. When they were in government they used to give us chapter and verse on the misdemeanours of previous Labour Governments. What they sow, they also reap.
	The hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) said that I champion pensioner causes. One of the causes that I am involved in at the moment concerns occupational pension schemes. I think that a pensioner trustee should be elected by pensioners' groups on to the boards, so that they can look after the statutory interests of the scheme and represent pensioners who have paid into the scheme, but who seem to be forgotten when dividends and other matters are considered. Next week, I shall be pursuing a Bill to do that. I hope that the House will let it go through, but I have a funny feeling that it may not.
	The hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire also said that if the Conservatives were to come to power they would cut tuition fees. They introduced them, then they ducked the issue by setting up the Dearing inquiry. They never took a decision: they left it to the incoming Labour Government to deal with.
	There is a serious problem with pension funds. It is known that at least 100 companies have serious difficulties in financing their pension schemes, especially those providing staff pensions. Having said that, I must give the Government a little credit. About two years ago they set up what I would have called the financial services regulator. The regulator has had only one or two years, and the House may want at some future point to examine the work of the regulator and see what remains to be put right.
	The Rolls-Royce pension fund has liabilities that are more than the value of the company. We heard from people from Rolls-Royce a couple of weeks ago. The regulator knows that the company is sitting down with the trade unions to address the problem, and it is prepared to find extra resources. I am not criticising Rolls-Royce, because it is trying to look after the interests of employees in the pensions area.
	As for the criticisms of the Government, I remember the debates about VAT on fuel. The Conservative Government wanted to go for the maximum rate, but when we came to office we reduced it as far as we could within European regulations and agreements. The present Government should be given credit for that. They should also be given credit for providing free television licences. When we attack the Government, we tend to forget that they have done some positive things.
	The other policy with a big effect not only on us, but on pensioners, is free eye testing. I can certainly remember that some hon. Members were not too happy about the abolition of free eye tests, which we have brought back. From a health perspective, that must be a very valuable thing.
	There are some concerns among pensioners. I take the point about post offices and especially cashpoint services. The Government are trying to address the matter, but I know that many pensioners prefer to go to their local post office and draw cash. We know that there are safety elements, but there is still a culture of people who much prefer to see cash than to use smart cards. That issue will be gradually overcome, and I notice that the numbers are diminishing.
	I am one of those people who believe in the pensions link; I always have and I always will. I know that there are arguments against it

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The eight minutes are up.

Frank Field: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Will you advise us as to whether, if we all speak for four minutes, we will all get into the debate?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is a matter for hon. Members to work out among themselves.

Paul Goodman: I shall try to please the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) by being as brief as possible, but I hope that he will forgive me if I begin my speech by congratulating the hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb) on his entertaining and incisive speech. It reminded me of the happy occasion on Second Reading of the State Pension Credit Bill when my party, his party and the right hon. Member for Birkenhead voted together to raise the basic state pension for over-75s. That would have aided older pensioners, who tend to be poorer, and among whom there are very many women. The hon. Gentleman was right to point out that targeted help does not always mean means-tested helpa point that I wish to refer to later if I have time.
	Obviously, the Government cannot possibly take all the blameI hope to strike a note of consensus here

Andrew Mitchell: Most of it.

Paul Goodman: Indeed, but they cannot take all the blame for what the Select Committee on Work and Pensions described in its latest report as the crisis of confidence in the pension system, and what my hon. Friend and I would describe as the crisis in the pension system. Surely, the Government cannot take all the blame for the fall in the stock markets, the switch from good, defined benefit schemes to less good defined contribution schemes or the challenges posed by an ageing population.
	However, I believe that the Government have made two major blundersone tactical and one strategicand I hope to have time to refer to both. I shall pass over the tactical blunder brieflythe removal of tax relief on dividends in the Chancellor's first Budget in 1997, which has taken 5 billion a year after pension funds. Like many measures, it seemed a good idea at the time. The Government wished to tax by stealth, rather than doing so openly, but in the recent inquiry of the Work and Pensions Committee, we heard evidence suggesting that that move has been very damaging indeed. I believe that the Minister should apologise for that in his winding-up speech.
	The strategic error is perhaps even more serious, and the hon. Member for Northavon referred to itthe rise in means testing with the consequences for take-up, which has led to a fall in incentives to save. I wish to begin exploring that theme with a quote from the Chancellor:
	I want the next Labour Government to achieve what in 50 years of the welfare state has never been achieved. The end of the means test for our elderly people.
	He said that in 1993, and I think that we can all agree that whatever has happened since, we have certainly not seen the end of the means test. In 1995, when the Conservative party was in government, 38 per cent. of pensioners were on means-tested benefit. Next year, that figure may well be up to 59 per cent.
	The right hon. Member for Birkenhead would doubtless remind us that means-testing has pernicious effects on incentives to save, but I want for the moment to concentrate on take-up. According to the Government's own figures, between 1999 and 2000, between 22 per cent. and 36 per cent. of pensioners did not take up the minimum income guarantee.
	When the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, on which I have the good fortune to sit, carried out its inquiry into pension credit, the Government made it clear that their expectation of the take up of pension creditnot a target, but an expectation, which they themselves described as ambitiouswas some 67 per cent. In other words, the Government expect the non-take-up rate of pension credit in 2004 to be 33 per cent.a third of pensioners. Despite the Minister's good intentions and the phone service that she mentioned, the Government do not expect the take-up rate to rise. In future, because pensioners will have to apply for the pension credit less frequently, which understandably is a noble aspiration of the Government, it will be even more difficult to assess whether take-up rates are rising or falling. By 2050, some 65 per cent. of pensioners could be on pension credit. In short, an even larger number of pensioners will be on means-tested benefits, with take-up rates possibly as low as 65 per cent. or 67 per cent.
	Another problem is that of incentives to save. In any pensions system, there will always be a trade-off between security and the incentive to save, but the problem, which the Work and Pensions Committee touched on in its pension credit inquiry and in its most recent inquiry, is that different elements of Government policy appear to be trying to do completely different things. The Government have added to the basic state pension, as the hon. Member for Northavon said, the state second pensionto replace SERPS, or the state earnings-related pension schemethe MIG, or minimum income guarantee, and now pension credit and stakeholder pensions, which, when I last looked, were hitting about 2 per cent. of their target group. The state second pension aims to prevent people who have worked all their lives from relying on means-tested benefits in retirement, but the MIG, if the Government continue on this course, will draw more and more pensioners into means-tested benefits when they retire. Government policy is trying to do two completely different things at once.
	In the course of the recent Select Committee inquiry, one problem become very clearnamely, that the Government cannot hope to address the difficulties with private pensions unless there is a stable, simple system of public sector pensions that can be relied upon, but because the two completely different major elements of the pension system try to do two completely different things, that certainty is not in place. I refer to the final paragraph of our report on pension credit, which was signed by all members of the Labour-dominated Committee. It said that
	the Pension Credit unquestionably adds further complexity to an already byzantine system of retirement provision, which is causing confusion for pensioners, pension providers and those saving for their old age.
	It is sad that after such a long period we still have no pensions Minister to address those problems. There is a widespread feeling in this House and outside it that the Green Paper, whatever else may be said of it, did absolutely nothing to address the fundamental confusions that lie at the heart of the Government's pensions policy. That is why my hon. Friends and I will, with good heart, vote for the motion.

Frank Field: The House is clearly very unobservant. We have had a pensions Minister since the election in 1997he goes by the title of Chancellor of the Exchequer. While it would be engaging for one of us Back Benchers to hold that position after the reshuffle, they would be the wrong candidate if they thought that they would have a real and effective role to play, although they may show the skills to advance further in the Government.
	I welcome the debate and wish briefly to make three points. I hope very much that the Government are reviewing with the utmost seriousness what their next step should be on pensions policy.
	If we look back to the position when we were elected in 1997, I doubt whether anyone would have thought that we would be having a pensions debate like this one today, or that so many of our constituents would be facing the worry and anxiety that they now face. Of course it is easy and cheap to lay the blame on various individuals and Governments, but I wish to be as constructive as possible in making three points about the fundamental review that I hope the Government are undertaking.
	First, the starting point must be what we thought about pensions, pension security and pension promises in 1997. In those days, we would boast that Britain had the largest, most secure form of funded pension provision not only in Europe but weighed against the whole of Europe put together. We underplayed the importance of the poverty of the state retirement pension because we thought that the strain could be taken up by occupational pensions. For various reasons, we now face a very different situation from that pertaining in 1997, and we can no longer rest on our laurels by saying that the occupational system will somehow take us through.
	The second issue about which I hope the Government will be honest in their review is that their emphasis on means tests now seems misplaced. It is quite clear that the message has gone out to all too many of our constituents that savings can damage their retirement income. We cannot explain the collapse in savings in this country in any other way than by saying that people are being very rational and that about 40 per cent. of working people cannot now save to make themselves a penny better offlet alone substantially better offthrough forgoing income now and trying to push it into their retirement.
	Worse still, the means-testing strategy on which the Government embarkedwith the best intentions in the worldis not sustainable. The consultation document published by the Government to ensure that we cheered the announcement of the pension credit shows that, by 2050, if only 65 per cent. of those who are eligible take up the pension credit, it will cost an additional 11p on the standard rate of tax. We are now living in an age of cuts in income tax, not of pushing them or any other taxes up. We know, therefore, that in the longer run, the pension credit cannot survive in its current form. That is the second reason why we need a fundamental review of pension strategy, and I hope that such a review is already well under way in government.
	My third point is about occupational pensions. It is a plea to the Government. When they come forward with their review, I ask them please not to insult our intelligence by trying once again to make out that occupational pensions can take the strain. It is possible that, if we are lucky, a few employers will set up new schemes, but no amount of whizz ways of encouraging employers to get their employees into schemes will surmount the pension crisis that we face. The task of introducing the fundamental reforms, which have now been six years in the waiting, will, if anything, help to underpin what remains of occupational pension schemes. Sadly, however, we are not in the game of seeing occupational schemes expand. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan) knows, we are in the game of pension wind-up. I hope that the Government will introduce proposals for an insurance scheme, so that those who find themselves having their pension promise snatched away will be secure.
	When we were elected, 60 per cent. of those who voted were aged over 45. It is quite possible that when we go to the polls in 10 years' time, the majority of those who vote will not be interested in what the Tories did, because we will have been in power for more than 10 years. Furthermore, probably for the first time, the majority of those casting their votes will be pensioners. If that does not concentrate the mind of the Government wonderfully on the Green Paper, I do not think anything will.

Andrew Mitchell: I cannot quite bring myself to congratulate the Liberal Democrats on the motion, but the hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb) is owed some credit for the way in which he opened the debate. I draw the House's attention to my entry in the Register of Members' Interests.
	Many of us are so concerned about the current pension crisis that we have even considered deploying the arcane parliamentary procedure of tabling a motion, to be debated on the Floor of the House that would allow us to cut the salary of the Minister for Pensions. As there is no Minister for Pensions, however, that would be otiose.
	For 60 days there has been no such Minister. As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald), Labour's priorities are clearly revealed by the fact that, having replaced the chairman of the party immediately, after 60 days it still does not think the replacement of the Minister for Pensions is important, despite the present circumstances. The Prime Minister is obviously as paralysed when it comes to appointing a Minister as he is when it comes to implementing a proper pension policy. He clearly needs advice.
	I can tell the Prime Minister that there is significant talent, even on the Labour Benches, among members of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions. Several of the Committee's members could easily replace the Minister for Pensions if he had a mind to appoint one of them. I do not want to damage the career of the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (James Purnell), but it is rumoured that he is about to take on the task. That would certainly be better than an empty chair.
	But the real answer may be to bring back the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), whom it is a pleasure to follow. I mean no disrespect to the Minister who will wind up the debate, but I am sure that every Member would welcome the right hon. Gentleman's reappearance at the Dispatch Box. He would bring some sanity to pension policy.
	The handling of the issue of why there is no Minister for Pensions, and has been no such Minister for 60 days, is symptomatic of the chaos of the Government's pension policy. There have been three reports on what has happened in the world of pensions, but there has been nothing from the Government except the Green Paper. In their amendment, the Government pray in aid the Select Committee's report. My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) accurately warned them about their selective quotation.
	I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle), will listen to this. In the amendment, the Government quote the Select Committee thus:
	current policies have been successful in reducing pensioner poverty.
	The Under-Secretary included that quotation in her opening speech. The full wording, however, is this:
	While current policies have been successful in reducing pensioner poverty in the short term, we recognise there are doubts that they are sustainable in the long term.
	The Government, who we understood were trying to lay off some of the spin, have deliberately taken a quotation out of context and stuck it in the motion. They should at least have the integrity to acknowledge that.
	While we are on the subject of the Committee's report, let me add that only two of our 29 recommendations are supportive of the Government. I am delighted to see that the Committee's Chairman is present: he will substantiate that if Ministers require him to do so. All the other recommendations call on the Government to do something. The report speaks of a lack of clarity, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe pointed out, if the Government cannot understand that it is for the Government sector first and foremost to provide clarity, the private sector will be able to do nothing.
	Before I leave the subject of the report that the Government have so iniquitously misquoted, let me draw their attention to paragraph 130, which deals with the state second pension. It says:
	The Government has not responded to that recommendation.
	that is, a recommendation in an earlier report
	and we ask them to do so within two months of publication of this report.
	The previous report had a three-month time scale. In the report I have just quoted, we asked the Government to respond within two months. Those two months have elapsed and the Government have said nothing. Not only is there no Minister for Pensions but we are not getting a proper response to questions on pensions.
	As most people apart from the Government know, there is a crisis in the pensions industry and in the pensions community. It is not all the Government's fault, as my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire said, but the 5 billion change cannot have helped. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood), who is after all a banker of some repute, said that the net present value of that change was no less than 105 billion. That is the scale of it. It may have looked like a small change to the Government, but not to anyone else.
	The difficulties of the pension credit have been well advertised in the debate. There will be serious difficulties in implementation. If Ministers do not realise that, they soon will. I visited the pensions office that serves my constituents in Sutton Coldfield. It is clear that the colossal increase in the prospective work load will be extremely difficult to handle.
	The Government stand condemned by almost everyone, not least the right hon. Member for Birkenhead, for their approach to means-testing. Sometimes, I think that the Government will not be happy until every pensioner is on some form of means-testing. It is the wrong approach. It enshrines dependency. The Government give with one hand and take away with the other and that is wrong.
	The complexity with which the Government have approached these tasks is noteworthy. It is almost impossible for an independent financial adviser to give advice with confidence without understanding what the Government will do with state provision. The stakeholder pension has been a complete flop. Not only, as the hon. Member for Northavon said, does the ABI dismiss it, but it has managed to hit practically none of the target group. I think I am right in saying that nine out of 10 of the shell stakeholder pensions set up by companies remain exactly thatshells. No one is putting any money into them.
	When my party left Government in 1997, our pensions were the envy of Europe. Under this Government, it is a litany of confusion, complexity and failure. Their noble attempt at the start of their time in government to reverse the ratio of funded to unfunded pension provision, which was 40:60, has failed. The Government will have to make some decisions on pensions. The sooner they make them for the benefit of current pensioners and pensioners to come, the better.

Kevin Brennan: It is coming up to the first anniversary of Allied Steel and Wire in Cardiff and in Sheerness going bust; hence my keener interest in occupational pensions. I was utterly gobsmacked when I discovered that those workers were originally employed by a nationalised industryalthough some were employed by a private steel companythat they were compelled as part of their employment contract to participate in an occupational pension scheme and paid into that scheme for decades but then, when the company went bust at the end of that period, they faced the prospect of losing most80 per cent. or moreof their pension. I was gobsmacked that that could be the legal position in this country in the 21st century, but it is.
	I welcome today's announcementI am sure all hon. Members dothat Celsa, the Spanish steel company, has announced that it will reopen the Allied Steel and Wire plant in Cardiff with 400 of the 800 posts; I hope that many of those who previously had jobs there will again be employed. I commend the National Assembly for Wales, the Government and the local council for helping that to happen.
	Nevertheless, many of those workers still see the complex issue of pensions in pretty stark and simple terms. They see that if there is a shortfall in the occupational pension scheme for people who are council employees, it is underwritten by the council tax payer. They see Members of Parliament and Members of the National Assembly having extra sums paid into their pension schemes and having their schemes potentially underwritten by the taxpayer. In contrast, how is the loyalty of Allied Steel and Wire workers repaid? Many of those workers will have worked loyally for the company over many years, and did not take early retirement or early redundancy, often because they were the best of the work force. When the company goes under because the pension scheme and the stock market happen to be at a low ebb, they are left to pay the price and bear the risk.
	I welcome the fact that the Government have introduced the Green Paper and that they have been listening on this issue, particularly in the past six months. I want to tell them what I would like to be included in the forthcoming announcement. I want the pension insurance scheme to be introduced, with the Government standing behind it, on the basis of the US Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, as suggested in press reports in yesterday's Financial Times and elsewhere.
	 There are those who talk about moral hazard, but that can be overcome. There can be safeguards in such a scheme. For example, a cap can be put on, so that fat-cat pensions do not get paid out of it. It is also possible to have a system whereby 90 per cent. of the pension, say, is met, rather than 100 per cent. Let us forget moral hazard and other theoretical economic arguments; that system would overcome the immoral hazard that workers face when they pay into pension schemes that at the end of the day, through no fault of their own, are not worth the paper they are written on.
	We must take care to understand what happened when the United States set up the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation in the 1970s, in terms of existing funds that had yet to be wound up. The US made sure that workers who suffered as a result of the wind-up of those schemes after the companies had gone into insolvency were protected. That is what should happen now, and it is not retrospection. There are schemes, such as the Allied Steel and Wire pension scheme, that have yet to be finally wound up. If the Government are going to legislate in this area to create a body like the PBGC, and if such legislation takes time to introduceI accept that it doesin the meantime the Government should stand behind those schemes and meet at least the majority of obligations in respect of those that have yet to be wound up. That is a quantifiable proposal that could be costed and met. We have a moral obligation to look seriously into doing that, and I should like the Government to say that they will.
	I shall wind up now, because time is very short and I want to hear what the Minister has to say. The issue of pensionsparticularly occupational pensions, and the question of whose side we are onis a key test. Are we on the side of the workers or the fat cats, and who carries the risk when companies go bust? In this case it is the workers who have carried the risk. That is morally wrong, and a Labour Government should be, and I hope will be, prepared to do something about it.

Maria Eagle: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Mitchell) accused me of quoting selectively from the Select Committee report

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hate to interrupt the Minister so quickly, but this sounds more like a matter for debate than a genuine point of order. We are short of precious time, and perhaps this is an issue that she can take up at a later date.

Paul Holmes: This has been a truncated debate on an important issue, but despite its brevity it has been excellent. My hon. Friend the Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb) gave his usual masterly tour de force. As he does every time he speaks on this subject, he not only explained the complexities of the pension system in a clear and understandable way, but made it entertaining. He outlined the failures of the inadequate state pension, the nightmare of means-testing, and the Government target through which they set out to miss 1 million of the poorest pensionerswho should be entitled to the tax creditjust as they missed one third of those entitled to the minimum income guarantee. He also outlined the failure of the stakeholder pension.
	The Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle) responded by denying that there was a pensions crisis, although nobody else seemed to agree with that. We heard that the Government had consulted widely and at great length, but so far to no avail. We heard criticism of our policy to target directly the poorest pensioners in the older age ranges through an age addition to the pension. The argument was that that would miss some of the younger pensioners whom the means-testing process was designed to hit. However, the Under-Secretary herself admitted that the Government expect to miss 1 million of the poorest pensioners anyway under the existing system. Our system would miss some, as my hon. Friend the Member for Northavon has pointed out in previous debates, but far fewer than the 1 million whom the Government plan to miss under the new scheme.
	The Minister went on to tell us how simple the application process was for various means-tested benefits, particularly the pension credit. In that case, why do one third of the people at whom it is aimed fail to claim it? In closing, however, the Minister attacked Conservative policy, so I could find some agreement there.
	The hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) started by denying his own party's statements about seeking 20 per cent. cuts in order to cut taxes. I certainly disagree there, but he made three valuable points with which I agree. He attacked the consultation culture, which is often bought at the expense of delivery. He mentioned the fact that the Government are considering taking council tax out of the inflation rate, yet the inflation rate is used for uprating pensions. We believe that measures of inflation should take into account the real and major cost to pensioners of items such as council tax. The hon. Gentleman also made a valid pointI recall encountering it elsewhere in my role as spokesman on disabilityabout the failure or absence of consultation on the introduction of PIN pads, which many pensioners simply cannot use.
	The hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) made the valuable point that when in opposition, the Chancellor said that he intended to end means-testing completely. Instead, after six years in government, he has massively expanded it beyond anything that we have seen before.
	In the few remaining minutes, I shall move on to two linked items from the motion. The new Minister for Pensions, when appointed, will be the sixth in six years. That rapid turnover, and the long delay in appointing a new Minister, suggests the lack of priority accorded by the Government to pensions issues. Similarly, I note a lack of urgency in dealing with the problems of private company pension schemes, which are a matter of great concern to many people. Numerous examples have arisen and been widely discussed in the House and across the country.
	The Government urge everyone to pay into private pension schemes, warning that we can no longer rely on the state pension. Yet horror stories about underfunded schemes and schemes that fail to pay out when companies go into receivership are numerous and growing and can only deter people of working age from entering into such schemes. Examples abound: some have been raised today, and others in the past by myself and other hon. Members.
	In 2001 Chesterfield Cylinders, one of six companies in the country owned by United Engineering Forgings Ltd., went into receivership. The employees, some of whom have worked for the company and paid into its pension scheme for 40 years, are still waiting to hear precisely what will happen, but have been advised that they may receive as little as 30 or 40 per cent. of the pension that they had saved for over their whole working lives. The following year, Dema Glass, also in my constituency, went into receivership and the workers were told exactly the same story: they would eventually receive a tiny fraction of the pensions that they had paid into all their working lives. Many of my constituents have been hit during the past few months by the problems of another company, Coalite Products Ltd., which is based just outside my constituency in Bolsover. Eighty-two of my constituents have been made redundant, and all now face vastly reduced pension payments for the same reason. We heard from the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan) about similar problems with Allied Steel and Wire.
	The common factor is not fraud, as happened with the Maxwell pensioners. People are losing 50 to 60 per cent.possibly moreof the pensions that they have paid for all their working lives, but it is legal. It is the product of several factors. The fall in stock market values is one, and pension holidays, which companies take in good times without making up for them in bad times, are another. Using funds for early retirement rather than redundancy robs the pension fund for people who are still in work. To add insult to injury, 15 per cent. or more of what is left in the fund often goes to the receivers in the long drawn-out process of winding schemes up.
	I raised those issues in a letter of 2001 to the former Minister for Pensions, the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McCartney), in oral questions and in debate in the Chamber last year. Two years on, however, there has been no concrete responsenothing, other than saying that measures exist to counter fraud. As I said, this is not fraud: it is legalised robbery. The only concrete proposals from the Government side in those two years have come from the private Member's Bill introduced by the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field). I shall be here to support it on Friday 20 June.
	I close by repeating the cry that we have heard from several hon. Members over the past two hours. The Government must act on pensions very quickly to tackle the pensions crisis and bring two years of dither and denial to an end.

Malcolm Wicks: This has been a useful and interesting debate, and I congratulate the Liberal Democrats on introducing it. In a spirit of generosity, I confirm that it is wholly fitting that the Liberals should talk about pensions, although when I told a political colleague that I intended to be generous to the Liberals, I was counselled against it. However, it was the Liberal Government in 1908some time agowho introduced the first old age pension, at the generous rate of 5 shillings. It was subject to a means testand, apparently, a test of moral character. I have no doubt that the great majority of Liberal Democrat Members would satisfy at least one of those tests. Whether they would all satisfy the same test is not for me to judge.
	A few years later, the Liberals introduced the National Insurance Act 1911, and it was the greatest of Liberal reformers, William Beveridge, who introduced the historic 1942 report on post-war social reconstruction. That is the Liberals' historical record up to the 1940s. Sadly, search as I might, I could find no further achievements in the following six decades. Indeed, while the winding-up speech from the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes) contained a critique, it did not contain any concrete proposals.
	The hon. Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb), who introduced the motion, made a useful speech, much of it an application for the job of Pensions Minister. I am on the working age side of the Department and have some responsibility, together with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Work, for Jobcentre Plus. It can normally find the job that people are seeking, but that may not be possible on this occasion. I shall discuss it with my colleagues, but the hon. Gentleman should not call us; we will call himor not.
	When we took office, the most immediate challenge that we faced was pensioner poverty. We have therefore had a strategy of targeting the poorest pensioners. We do not apologise for that; indeed, we are proud of it. The targeting has meant that the bottom one third of pensioners in terms of income have gained 3.5 billion a year, which is some four and a half times more than the resources that would have been necessary to restore the earnings link, as some suggested we should do. Pension credit will entitle the poorest 50 per cent. of pensioners to 400 extra a year in addition to what they receive at present.
	We have heard some textual criticism of the Work and Pensions Committee's report, and dispute about its conclusions, but it is clear what is meant when it says:
	We agree that the current policies have been successful in reducing pensioner poverty.
	The renowned Institute for Fiscal Studies, for which the hon. Member for Northavon has some regardhe may even have a pension from ithas said:
	Quite unlike during other periods of strong economic performance over the last 40 years, pensioner incomes across the distribution have kept pace with the growth in non-pensioner incomes. This has been in large part due to big increases in the generosity of state benefits.

Annabelle Ewing: The Minister referred to the pensioner credit. Given that one in four pensioners in Scotland are still living in poverty after six years of Labour Government, can he say whether a specific target for take-up will be set for Scotland? If so, what will the target be?

Malcolm Wicks: There is not enough time to discuss the definitions of poverty, and I do not necessarily accept the figure that the hon. Lady has given. I hope that despite some controversy about pension credits, every Member of Parliament will be part of the strategy to encourage people to take them up, because that is what is important. We should forget the politics and get behind the policy, for the sake of our poorest pensioners.
	The other major theme was the future of occupational and private pension schemes. I cannot reply to all the points that have been made, but my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) made a helpful and friendly contribution, as usual. It is obviously a week for ex-Ministers to be as helpful as possible.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan) also dealt with those matters. Different views have been expressed in the Green Paper consultation, on a wide range of issues. We must now find the best solution for all involved, balancing the needs of employers and savers, building on consensus where we can, but accepting that there are difficult decisions to be made.
	Indeed, we must find a balanced way forward for all the matters highlighted in the Green Paper. For example, protection of members when a scheme is wound up, and the priority order of scheme creditors, are critical issues. Many people have welcomed the Government's proposals to share out assets more fully when a scheme is wound up. The challenge is to decide exactly how that can be done to benefit both current and future pensioners in the scheme. Revising the division of assets could take both age and length of service into account for future pensioners. That would guard against people joining a scheme near retirement age and ending up at the head of the queue if the scheme winds up.
	Many employers feel very strongly about the priority order of creditors. A range of views has been expressed about the best way forward, and the Government must determine exactly what can be done to strike a balance between those options. As my colleague the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle), indicated, we will publish our proposals this summer.
	I can tell my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South (Mr. Cunningham) that, with consultation about a new kind of regulator currently taking place, the Government hope to build on the work of the Occupational Pensions Regulatory Authority and improve the speed up for such schemes.

Bob Spink: Would the Minister consider relaxing section 67 of the Pensions Act 1995 to enable companies to amend schemes rather than simply close them down?

Malcolm Wicks: We set out options on that in the Green Paper, and we are examining the matter carefully. It is no one's fault, but I am afraid that the timing of the debate and the fact that we are not yet ready to publish our proposals mean that I am not prepared to comment on the matter.

Lynne Jones: Another important challenge for the Government is to establish a sure foundation on which people can plan for their future retirement. The current hotch-potch of benefits, pensions and credits is incomprehensible. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is impossible that it will stand the test of time?

Malcolm Wicks: What is important is that we are giving more money than ever before to the poorest pensioners. That is the key test. We have established a Pension Service to look at the needs of pensioners, and we have published the Green Paper. I think that that shows the Government's good intent.
	The hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald), the shadow Minister, raised a number of issues, and I cannot comment on them all. However, he asked about direct payments in particular, and I appeared before the Select Committee on Trade and Industry to deal with that only this morning.
	I am sure that the direct payment approach is the right approach. It gives customerspensioners or benefit recipientschoice as to whether they have a Post Office card account, or a bank or building society account. We are talking to the relevant organisations and to elderly people themselves about the requirements of people with special needs, for whom there will be an exceptions service. I assure the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire that we are working and listening very hard to ensure that we get that service right in the future.
	Liberal Democrat and Conservative Members have one thing in commonthey are both opposed to pension credit. What are the implications of that? The Liberal Democrats make hay with take-up figures, and I have already noted that we must all get behind the take-up issue. If the Liberal Democrats had their way and formed a new Government to follow in the footsteps of the great Government of 1906I do not know when that might happen, but it might be as far in the future as 2106the take-up of pension credit would be zero, because the credit would not exist. The implications of that would be grave injustice, and the pound-for-pound withdrawal that exists under the current system would still prevail.
	With all due respect, I sometimes think that the hon. Member for Northavon should cheer up. He does not seem to like anything that the Government have done for pensionersthe winter fuel allowance, the state second pension or payment modernisation. He opposes the pension creditand he probably opposed the invention of the wheel, and of steam wireless, too. He is becoming the moaning Minnie of the House. He is the Victor MeldrewI beg his pardon, the Professor Victor Meldrewof the Liberal Democrats. He really should cheer up. He has a proposal

Robert Smith: rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
	Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.

Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question:
	The House divided: Ayes 202, Noes 313.

Question accordingly negatived.
	Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 31 (Questions on amendments):
	The House divided: Ayes 305, Noes 195.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	Mr. Deputy Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
	Resolved,
	That this House recognises that the UK has the largest stock of private pension saving in Europe and a tradition of pension partnership at the workplace which leaves it well placed to rise to the challenge of longer lives; welcomes the conclusion of the Work and Pensions Committee that the UK pensions system is basically sound; further recognises that there are pressures on pension systems at the moment and supports the Government's proposals, as outlined in the recent Green Paper, to renew the UK pensions partnership, to introduce further measures to bolster the UK system which better focus regulation on contemporary anxieties, and to increase security without increasing the overall costs of running pensions; strongly endorses the Work and Pensions Committee's judgement that current policies have been successful in reducing pensioner poverty; further recognises that this is of particular benefit to women; welcomes the state second pension which will provide lower earners, disabled people and carers, some 18 million people most of whom are women, with a better pension; believes that good pensions policy must be built on a foundation of the basic state pension, which has increased in real terms for three years in a row; and looks forward to the Pension Credit reform in October which will ensure that those with modest savings are properly rewarded for the first time.

EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES (AMENDMENT) ACT 1993

Ordered,
	That, for the purposes of their approval under section 5 of the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1993, the Government's assessment as set out in the Budget 2003 shall be treated as if it were an instrument subject to the provisions of Standing Order No. 118 (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation).[Gillian Merron.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
	That, at the sitting on Tuesday 10th June, Private Business set down for Four o'clock by the Chairman of Ways and Means shall be entered upon at the conclusion of Government business (whether before, at or after Four o'clock), and may then be proceeded with, though opposed, for a period of three hours, after which the Speaker shall interrupt the business.[Gillian Merron.]

FINANCE BILL (PROGRAMME) (NO. 4)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith,
	That the programme order of 6th May 2003, as amended by the order of 8th May 2003, shall be further amended by the substitution in paragraph 3(1) of '17th June 2003' for '12th June 2003'.[Gillian Merron.]
	Question agreed to.

PETITION
	  
	Fireworks

Roger Gale: I have the honour to present a petition on behalf of Mrs. Margaret Todd, MBE, the founder and secretary of the Lord Whisky Sanctuary Fund, and of more than 5,000 constituents of my own and other constituents in east Kent.
	The petition reads:
	To the Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled.
	The Humble Petition of Mrs M Todd, MBE, and others,
	SHEWETH
	That the setting off of fireworks causes distress and sometimes injury to domestic and farm animals and other wildlife.
	Wherefore your Petitioners pray that your Honourable House will restrict the setting off of fireworks to 5th November and ban the setting off of fireworks on all other days, except for properly organised and licensed public celebrations.
	And your Petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray, c.
	I hope that the petition will give a nudge to the legislation currently going through the House, and that on Friday 13 June we shall take another step forward to the realisation of my petitioners' dreams.
	To lie upon the Table.

TARIQ AZIZ

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.[Gillian Merron.]

Tam Dalyell: Over 41 years as a Member of the House, I have initiated just over 100 Adjournment debates. On no occasion have I known less about the subject than I do about today's issue of the detention of Tariq Aziz. I do not know where he is. I do not know in what conditions he is held. Is he in Baghdad? Is he in the continental United States? What were the circumstances in which he went into the hands of the coalition? As I understand it, there is a rumourI cannot say that it is more than a rumourthat his sister arranged for his going into the hands of the coalition on condition that he should have attention to his three heart attacks. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will be able to enlighten us. After all, it is a coalition responsibility, and as a member of the coalition, we are entitled to ask the Americans what they are doing and what they intend to do.
	In 1993 and again in 1998 I went to Iraq. On the first occasion I saw Tariq Aziz in his office. On the second occasion, travelling with the former Irish Prime Minister, the father of the peace process, Albert Reynolds, the Taoiseach, we were invited to supper in Tariq Aziz's house. I understand that it was the first time that westerners had been so invited since Edward Heath was invited long before. It was not a particularly sumptuous affair. The meal was made by Mrs. Aziz, with help from a lady who came in.
	On that occasion, one of the things discussed at length was Iraq's history. Part of the reason why I was invited may be that my father was the secretary to Sir William Willcocks, the man who did the damming of the Tigris and Euphrates, and was the friend of Leonard Woolley who excavated Ur of the Chaldees and worked for Gertrude Bell, who was Sir Percy Cox's Oriental Secretary.

David Winnick: Will my hon. Friend give way?

Tam Dalyell: No, not at the moment, please.
	In the circumstances, I feel entitled to ask a rather particular question, of which I have given some notice to the Foreign Office.
	The issue that has been raised, and which I raise again, concerns the vital need to protect epigraphic, clay tablet and paper archive written records in Iraq documenting extreme global climate fluctuations in the past 5,000 years. I am indebted to Dr. Richard Grove of the Centre for World Environmental History, whom I have known for a long time, and I put forward his concern.
	Currently, human societies face a global climate crisis involving a phase of global warming of unprecedented dimensions. The scientific consensus on this is shown in the official publications of the intergovernmental panel on climate change, and is a consensus with which the British Government implicitly concur in their current and relatively sophisticated policies designed to move towards carbon dioxide emissions reductions.
	To understand the likely social, physical and policy implications of the global warming crisis, scientists have no option but to refer to the physical proxy and documentary historical record of previous warming events or other extreme climatic events as analogues of unstable or extreme climate events produced by global warming. For this purpose, the longer the physical or historical record of climate, the more valuable is the analogue for prediction purposes and for the purposes of scientific insight and analysis.
	The clay tablet and paper records in Iraq constitute the longest single, largely unbroken climate record known on earth.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I am having some difficulty connecting the present passage of his speech with the subject of his Adjournment debate, which is about the imprisonment of a particular individual.

Tam Dalyell: I merely raised the question of the detention of Tariq Aziz, because I know very little about the circumstances. I can only ask the question. However, there is the related question of what is happening to the museum, especially the research that has been carried out in the past decadeand in the past five years in particularshowing that during the past five to 5,500 years

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has vast experience, but nevertheless he is putting me in a difficult position. We cannot have a subject for debate that is put to Mr. Speaker and chosen by him but is the cover for something entirely different. That makes nonsense of the whole system of Adjournment debates. I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that he must speak to the subject that he has given, and not go on to other matters that do not seem to have any direct relationship to it.

Tam Dalyell: I am always obedient to the Chair. There are other ways of raising the security or otherwise of the tablets. That was a concern of Tariq Aziz. I think that you are being tough on me, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Of course, I obey the Chair. There is an agreement that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) should also participate in the debate.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I do not like to be severe towards the Father of the House, to whose experience I bow. However, I must defend the basic rules of the House. If the subject submitted is the imprisonment of Mr. Tariq Aziz, then that is what we have to debate, and not a related matter, however important in itself.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I hope that you will be as gentle with me as you always have been. I am also grateful to the Father of the House, who has allowed me to participate, albeit briefly, in this short but important Adjournment debate.
	I hold no brief for Mr. Tariq Aziz, and I can say straight away that I do not wish to have a brief for him. Equally, I hope that at some stage someone will hold a brief for Mr. Tariq Aziz. If he is to be tried, I hope that he will be tried in all the circumstances that we would regard as humane, humanitarian and in the best traditions of our own form of justice.
	That is the matter that causes those of us present a certain amount of concern. There are two questionsa wider and a narrower one. Now that I have reached the grist of what I am going to say, I am pleased to see that the Minister is in his place to hear it. The wider question pertains to the legality of actions taken by the coalition in the invasion of Iraq. We had a debate in the House and views were widely aired on both sides. I have never made any secret of my view that the invasion of Iraq was based on very doubtful legality. Whether that will be shown post facto is a matter that we must now consider, but there is a wider issue of legality and it seems to us that its importance is that the more powerful a man, woman or nation is, the more important it is that legality is observed by that man, woman or nation state.

David Winnick: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that, as someone who totally disagrees with his views on military intervention in Iraq, I agree that all those major or minor figures who are detained should in due course be brought to justice if charges are to be made? Has not the case of Milosevic demonstrated that, when a powerful figure is detained, charged and arrested, every facility, according to the rule of law, is given to that individual? There is no reason why that should not happen in respect of those who are detained at the moment, if charges are levelled against them in Iraq.

Robert Marshall-Andrews: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. As he well knows, although we disagree on a number of issues, we make common cause on others. One of them is civil liberties and those who are affected by the law, be it national or international. To take up the case of Mr. Milosevic for a moment, he is being tried by a special court set up under the aegis of the United Nations. There are now two such courts and they are concurrently running in respect of Rwanda and Bosnia. I concur entirely with those courts, the way in which they were set up and the way in which those who are before them were brought before them, because there was a measure of transparency in all that. There was a measure of transparency in the arrest of Milosevic, who was arrested and given up by his own people into the custody of that court. In Rwanda, although the position is much more opaque, a similar situation pertains.
	It is a matter of concern to us that that is not the case in respect of the detention of Tariq Aziz and others, and nor is it the case, I feel bound to say, in respect of the detention of 600 or so individuals in Camp X-Ray in Cuba, who have now been detained for a very considerable period. What concerns usit concerns me as a friend of America, which I have always beenis the effect that that form of apparently arbitrary justice will have on America's reputation and that of its allies. I repeat that the more powerful a nation isthere has never been a more powerful nation on earth than the United States of Americathe greater the necessity that it should adhere to the rules and canons of international law.
	The detention of Tariq Aziz falls to the occupying forces, which have the right under the fourth Geneva convention to implement the laws of the nation that they occupy. Thus, detention itself is not an issue. If he is thought to have committed crimes in due courseI imagine that there is perfectly good evidence that he has been complicit in crimesdetention is not an issue. What is at issue is the nature of that detention and the fact that we do not know anything about its circumstances, whether he is represented, the extent to which he is subject to interrogation and the form of the interrogation to which he is subject. All those matters may be entirely allowable under the aegis of international law, but it is essential that the international community should be aware of what is happening in its name. If we are to be part of a coalition of the willing rebuilding Iraq in a way that brings us all together in common cause, it is essential that the transparency of justice should be maintained.
	I hope that the Minister, in answering those questions, will give us some insight into what the Government believe to be the position with Mr. Aziz and other detainees, when they can be brought to trial, the circumstances of their present detention, and the nature of the representation and trial that they may in due course expect.

Bill Rammell: I am genuinely grateful for the opportunity that has been accorded us by the Father of the House in raising a matter that is important to us all. Certainly, it presents the Government with an opportunity to update Members on the situation regarding Tariq Aziz specifically, but also on the wider Iraq issues concerning detainment and the overall reconstruction and rebuilding process that is taking place in Iraq.
	Turning first to Tariq Aziz's detention, the Father of the House and other Members will be aware of a written parliamentary answer recently provided by the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien), which says:
	Tariq Aziz voluntarily surrendered to the coalition forces in Baghdad and is currently in custody. The coalition partners have had the opportunity to interview Mr. Aziz on a number of topics and this will continue.[Official Report, 3 June 2003; Vol. 406, c. 3W.]
	Foreign Office officials recently double-checked that position, and I can confirm that Mr. Aziz remains in US custody in Baghdad and that the International Committee of the Red Cross has been notified and given access to the detention centre where Tariq Aziz and other detainees are being held. We are trying to establish what medical treatment the detainees are receiving, but I can assure Members that all prisoners of war are being treated in accordance with international law and the Geneva conventions.

Andrew MacKinlay: Does that mean that we, as coalition partners, have not had or sought access to such a key figure? That is surprising. Surely the questioning is not exclusively a matter for the United States, but also for us, and we would want to have access to him. Why have we not, and when will we?

Bill Rammell: As my hon. Friend will be aware, under the terms of the coalition Iraq is being divided into different parts, with different nations having responsibility for different sectors, and people who are captured in a certain area will be a matter for those detaining authorities. Clearly, there is a process of communication. I am trying to update the House on the position as of this evening. If Members have further questions, I am more than happy to pursue them after the debate.
	I should like to take this opportunity to add a number of further points about the coalition's general handling of detainees and prisoners of war. It is too early to determine the nature of any criminal charges that Tariq Aziz and other Iraqi detainees may face; and it is not for this Government to bring those charges. Meanwhile, it bears repetition that those prisoners or detainees, including Tariq Aziz and others on the US list of most wanted former members of the Saddam regime suspected of war crimes are, of course, being dealt with in accordance with international law and the Geneva conventions.

Tam Dalyell: If it is not for the Government to bring charges, who is to bring charges?

Bill Rammell: The Father of the House anticipates what I am about to say about the way in which I think justice will be brought forward in Iraq.
	UN Security Council resolution 1483, which was adopted on 22 May by unanimity, affirms the need for accountability for crimes and atrocities committed by the previous Iraqi regime. It also appeals to member states to deny safe haven to those members of the previous regime who are alleged to be responsible for crimes and atrocities and to support actions to bring them to justice.
	The discovery of mass graves in Iraq that became possible only after the fall of the regime has brought home to us all the genuine horrors of Saddam Hussein's regime. The crimes alleged to have been committed by that regime against its own people were, of course, already well known: hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Iraqis are reported to have been its victims. We have always believed that the Iraqi leaders most responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes should be brought to justice as soon as possible. I want to make it clear that that is not victor's justiceI know that that is a concern of the Father of the House and other Members in the Chamberbut will be a system of justice brought forward in accordance with international law and the Geneva conventions.
	There are strong arguments for allowing the Iraqis themselves to bring to justice those who have committed crimes against them, and we will need to see what sort of investigative and trial processes they can adopt. We know that, under Saddam's regime, Iraq's judicial system became heavily corrupted. That is beyond dispute. Many judges had to leave Iraq and that has unquestionably reduced the Iraqi judicial system's capacity to cope with legacy crimes. Iraq will need international help to rehabilitate its justice system, and we are willing to play a part, together with our coalition partners, in achieving that end.
	I should like to give the House some of the political context within which the rebuilding of the judicial system is taking place. It is important to note that UN resolution 1483 delivers on our commitment to lift UN sanctions, set out in the UK's statement produced at the Azores summit, A Vision for Iraq and the Iraqi People. Resolution 1483 also stresses the fundamental right of the Iraqi people to determine their own political future and control their own resources, and welcomes the commitment of all parties concerned to support the creation of an environment in which they may do so as soon as possible. It explicitly expresses our resolve that the day when Iraqis govern themselves must come quickly.
	In accordance with Resolution 1483, Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations, has appointed Sergio Vieira de Mello, the UN high commissioner for human rights, as his special representative for Iraq. Mr. de Mello will work with the coalition provisional administration, the Iraqis and the wider international community to implement resolution 1483. It is important to note that the central political element of resolution1483 specifically encourages efforts by the people of Iraq to form a representative Government based on the rule of law to afford equal rights and justice to all Iraqi citizens. Crucially, the resolution supports the formation by the people of Iraqwith the help of the coalition authority, working with the UN special representativeof an Iraqi interim Administration as a transitional Administration run by Iraqis, until an internationally recognised representative Government are established at a later stage.

David Winnick: Would it not be of great advantage if open proceedings were to take place against this individualif charges are to be laid against himand others who are held responsible for the mass murder of thousands upon thousands of people, so that the Iraqi people themselves can see the rule of law in action? Would that not bring home to them the terrible crimes that have been committed? It is unfortunate that my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) did not raise the question of human rights when he went to Iraq; I consider that to be totally deplorable.

Bill Rammell: I agree with my hon. Friend that it is important for the rebuilding and reconstruction of Iraq that justice is seen to be done. He has a strong track record in relation to making that point. Horrific atrocities have taken place, and I would hope that every hon. Member wants a proper system of judicial process to ensure that charges are brought and taken forward.
	I have set out the political context in which that process of judicial reform is being attempted and is taking place. I hope, therefore, that it is clear that it will be for the evolving Iraqi Administration, or the eventual Iraqi Government, to deem themselves ready to consider a series of possible mechanisms for the delivery of justice. Such mechanisms could include special chambers to deal with those most responsible for crimes against humanity, war crimes or genocide; the use of the Iraqi courts for serious, but lesser crimes; and truth and reconciliation commissions for the least serious offences. This is certainly not the victor's justice that the Father of the House is concerned about.
	International help will be needed to enable those mechanisms to be set up. It could take some time before the past crimes of the regime can be prosecuted, but we are already taking steps to ensure that that matter is dealt with. Protecting evidence is a key element in ensuring that that happens, and it has been a paramount concern of the coalition forces to endeavour to preserve the documentary evidence that they encounter during the course of operations that could relate to possible war crimes by the Iraqis and also to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programme. I am pleased to confirm that a team of coalition specialists, including forensic experts, has started work on how best to preserve evidence for use in future judicial processes. Their recommendations will be invaluable. As Iraq becomes progressively secured, the activity to amass such evidence can be stepped up.
	Given your indulgence, Mr. Deputy SpeakerI recognise that I am beginning to tread on dangerous territorybefore you intervened on the Father of the House you allowed him to make certain concerns plain. I am more than happy to respond, in a limited way.
	I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising an important point about the need to identify and preserve antiquities, in particular the Sumerian tablets in Iraq. UN security resolution 1483 called on all member states to take appropriate steps to facilitate the safe return to Iraqi institutions of Iraqi cultural property, and called on UNESCO to help. The British Museum has been involved, and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is looking beyond the immediate problem of looting and acting to prevent Iraq's treasures from reaching the international art market.
	Following a suggestion by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, Foreign Office officials have spoken about the Sumerian tablets to Professor Richard Grove at the University of Sussex. As the Father of the House knows, Professor Grove is a leading expert on such issues. He says that the tablets date back to 2900 BC, and are thought to constitute the oldest script in the world. They are, in fact, some 5,000 years old. He says that they contain important data on climatic events of the time, and are hugely important to our understanding of climate change today.
	It was vital to try to find and secure those treasures. I am happy to confirm that we are now taking steps to identify and protect the Sumerian tablets, along with other antiquities. I hope that that will reassure the Father of the House, although I should be happy to engage in further correspondence.

Tam Dalyell: The vital question relates to information about possible El Nino activitybut I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend. Let me also put this on record: I think you were absolutely right, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Bill Rammell: I would not wish for a minute to gainsay that assertion.
	This has been an important debate. There will undoubtedly be legitimate concerns about people who are detained. I have tried to make clear our understanding of the whereabouts of Tariq Aziz, and to make the important point that at all stages international law and the Geneva convention will be adhered to. But as we seek to rebuild Iraq, we must bear in mind that it has to be an Iraq for the Iraqi people. That means that they must be involved in the process of reconciliation, and the judicial processes that are necessary for the bringing to justice of those who have perpetrated unmentionable atrocities. It is important for the Iraqi people to take the lead in that. Whether it applies to Tariq Aziz or any of the other people who have been detained. I hope that the House agrees that the process is extremely important.
	I thank the Father of the House for the opportunity to air these important issues.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I should perhaps say that the Chair always relies on the good will of Members, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) for what he said.
	Question put and agreed to.
	Adjourned accordingly at seven minutes to Eight o'clock.